THE  GIFT  OF 

MAY  TREAT  MORRISON 

IN  MEMORY  OF 

ALEXANDER  F  MORRISON 


1         J 


Will  the  Home  Survive 


A  Study  of  Tendencies 
in    Modern    Literature 


CHAUNCEY  J.  HAWKINS 

Author  of  "  The  Min}  'of  Whittier  " 


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NEW  YORK 

THOMAS  WHITTAKER,  Inc. 

2  AND  3  Bible  House 


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Copyright,  1907, 
By  Thomas  Whittaker,  Inc. 


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HO 


To  the  memory  of  J.  N.   Beard, 
former  President  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  the  Pacific,  who  was  a  great 
^  inspiration  to  me  in  student  days, 

N  and    the    richness   of    whose   life 

S  grows  upon  me  as  the  years  pass, 

I    dedicate     this     little     volume. 


O 

t 
C9 


J.34429 


Contents 

I.     Introduction    ....  7 

II.     Ibsen's  Ethics  of  Marriage      .  27 

III.  Bernard  Shaw  and  the  Super- 

man        .         .         .         .        .  63 

IV.  Max  Nordau  and  Naturalism  .  ^^ 

V.     Tolstoy's  Conception  of  Mar- 
riage        102 

VI.     The  Family  IN  Modern  Fiction  119 

VII.     Socialism  and  the  Family        .  171 

VIII.     H.  G.  Wells  :  the  Prophet  of 

the  New  Order      .         .        .  204 

IX.    Some  Concluding  Words          .  231 


Will  the  Home  Survive 


INTRODUCTION 

Will  the  family,  that  institution  which  we 
have  long  regarded  as  the  unit  of  civilization, 
the  foundation  of  the  state,  survive  ?  The 
very  form  of  the  question  may  startle  us,  but 
we  have  to  recall  only  a  few  facts  to  remind 
ourselves  that  the  family  of  our  fathers'  time 
has  almost  entirely  gone.  Its  going  has  not 
been  caused  by  any  revolution,  it  has  passed 
so  imperceptibly  that  we  scarcely  realize  that 
it  has  gone.  Indeed,  in  a  few  cases  it  may 
remain  in  something  like  its  original  state,  but 
for  the  most  part  the  home,  as  our  fathers 
knew  it,  has  entirely  passed  from  our  civiliza- 
tion. 

Home  life,  for  the  most  part,  especially  in 
large  cities,  is  a  matter  of  history.     Hunter  in 

7 


8  Will  the  Home  Survive 

his  suggestive  book  on  Poverty  says  of  the 
home  of  our  fathers :  "  The  economic  de- 
velopment of  the  last  hundred  years  has  des- 
troyed it  and  left  in  its  stead  a  mere  shadow 
of  what  once  was  the  source  of  all  things 
essential  to  the  world.  The  mills,  factories, 
abattoirs,  breweries,  and  bakeries  took  from 
the  home  the  various  trades  ;  the  state  sup- 
plied the  defense,  and  the  city  the  water 
supply ;  the  sanitarian,  the  surgeon,  and  the 
alienist  took  precaution  against  disease  and 
replaced  home  remedies  by  skilled  practice 
and  medical  science ;  the  sick  have  hospital 
care,  the  schools  undertake  the  instruction  of 
the  child,  and  the  factory,  etc.,  the  technical 
training.  The  home  is  now  a  few  rooms  in  a 
crowded  tenement  or  apartment-house.  The 
fields  have  diminished  to  commons,  the  com- 
mons to  yards,  the  yards  to  courts  and  light 
shafts;  the  tenement  has  become  yardless. 
Little  or  nothing  has  replaced  the  social  losses 
of  the  home." 

A   few  decades  ago  virtually  the  entire  life 
of  the  parent  and  the  child  was  in  and  about 


Introdtiction  9 

the  home.  There  the  work  was  done,  and  it 
was  for  the  most  part  hand  work.  KiUing, 
cooking,  baking,  sewing,  spinning,  were  all 
home  occupations.  The  child  was  not  only 
trained  in  the  three  R's  by  its  parents,  but  by 
them  was  given  the  higher  education  it  re- 
ceived in  the  affairs  of  life.  The  child  was 
with  the  parent  a  large  part  of  the  day  and 
was  in  a  position  to  observe  the  parent  at 
work.  But  this  has  all  been  changed.  The 
child  of  to-day  receives  a  very  small  part  of 
its  education  in  the  home.  The  public  school 
is  responsible  for  its  education  so  far  as  the 
knowledge  of  books  is  concerned.  In  the 
affairs  of  life  the  store  and  factory  educate  the 
child.  The  larger  education  the  child  derives 
from  play  is  usually  gained  in  the  street.  The 
home  is  a  place  of  a  few  rooms  where  the^ 
family  eat  and  sleep.  The  home  life  is  gone. 
The  American  city  is  no  longer  a  place  of 
homes,  but  of  tenement  and  apartment- 
houses. 

The  loosening  of  the  family  ties  through 
the  laxity  of  divorce  laws  has  also  resulted  in 


lo  IVill  the  Home  Survive 

the  passing  of  the  older  conception  of  family- 
life.  The  home  made  by  one  man  and  one 
woman  bound  together  "  until  death  do  ye 
part "  has  in  large  measure  given  way  to  the 
trial  marriage.  Many  men  and  women  enter 
into  this  relationship  openly  confessing  that 
they  will  test  the  matrimonial  state,  and  if  it  is 
not  successful  will  seek  their  freedom,  while, 
we  fear,  an  increasing  number,  who  are  not  so 
bold  in  their  confessions,  understand  that  it  is 
a  comparatively  easy  task  to  find  freedom  if 
they  are  not  happily  married.  At  any  rate, 
the  increase  in  divorce  in  recent  years  has 
been  so  rapid  that  there  can  be  little  doubt 
about  the  changed  conceptions  concerning  the 
sacredness  of  marriage. 

The  necessity  for  family  life  has  been 
greatly  modified  both  by  the  modern  educa- 
tion of  women  and  by  the  convenient  means  of 
living  which  are  open  to  men.  The  higher 
education  of  woman  and  the  industrial  oppor- 
tunities for  maintaining  herself  have  made  her 
economically  independent  of  man  and  hence 
she  has  greater  freedom  in  the  choice  of  a 


Iiiirodiiction  1 1 

husband.  The  boarding-house  and  club  life 
supply  two  of  the  most  important  factors 
which  once  made  man  dependent  upon 
woman,  while  with  a  large  class  of  men  the 
prostitute,  or  if  they  are  men  of  wealth,  the 
mistress,  satisfy  their  sexual  instincts.  All 
these  things  have  contributed  to  reduce  the 
number  of  marriages  in  proportion  to  the 
population.  This  is  true  of  almost  every 
country  of  Europe.  In  Holland  the  number 
of  marriages  to  10,000  persons  dropped  from 
171  in  1873  to  139  in  1886;  in  Switzerland 
from  152  to  137;  in  Austria  from  188  to 
155  ;  in  France  from  178  to  149;  in  Belgium 
from  156  to  134;  in  England  from  176  to 
141  ;  in  Scotland  from  155  to  124;  in  Ireland 
from  96  to  84;  in  Denmark  from  162  to  142 ; 
in  Norway  from  145  to  131. 

Those  who  refuse  because  of  modern  con- 
ditions to  enter  into  the  marriage  relationship 
are  for  the  most  part  people  of  high  culture. 
Not  more  than  half  the  women  who  graduate 
from  college  are  ever  married,  and  the  men 
who  withhold  themselves  from  this  relation- 


12  Will  the  Home  Stcrvive 

ship   are    as   a   rule   men   of  education   and 
thought. 

Furthermore,  what  our  fathers  regarded  as 
the  natural  and  divinely  ordained  end  of 
marriage,  the  bearing  of  children,  finds  less 
place  in  the  conduct  of  this  generation.  Out- 
side our  immigrant  class,  and  a  few  native- 
born  families  scattered  here  and  there,  women 
have  learned  the  art  of  preventing  pregnancy, 
and  if  they  fail  in  this,  notwithstanding  moral 
and  criminal  codes,  they  resort  to  abortion  in 
preference  to  giving  birth  to  many  children. 
There  are  several  reasons  for  the  increase  of 
this  practice.  It  would  be  an  error  to  attrib- 
ute the  practice  entirely  to  immoral  or  heedless 
women.  There  are  unquestionably  some  who 
practice  abortion  because  they  do  not  want  an 
interruption  of  sexual  pleasures,  who  do  not 
like  the  duties  of  motherhood,  and  who  do  not 
want  to  run  the  risk  of  losing  their  hold  upon 
their  husbands,  which  might  result  during  a 
part  of  the  period  of  pregnancy.  But  there 
are  more  serious  reasons  which  deter  many. 
The  fear  that  the  children  cannot  be  given  the 


Introduction  13 

necessary  education  to  fit  them  for  the  best  in 
life,  the  pinch  of  poverty,  industrial  incon- 
venience, deter  many  from  fulfilling  the  end 
of  their  existence.  The  desire  for  uninter- 
rupted social  life,  and  the  dread  of  want,  are 
the  two  great  forces  warring  against  the  holy 
tnnity  of  father,  mother,  and  child  which 
characterized  the  home  of  our  fathers. 

Hence  the  question  is  not.  Will  the  family  of 
our  fathers'  time  endure?  That  type  of 
family  life  has  already  largely  passed  from  our 
civilization.  The  family  has  never  been  a 
fixed  institution,  but  has  constantly  been 
modified  by  the  industrial  forces  to  which  it 
was  compelled  to  adjust  itself,  as  well  as  by 
the  changed  conditions  of  moral,  religious, 
and  intellectual  thought  of  different  times. 
Imperceptibly  this  adjustment  has  been  taking 
place  in  recent  years  until  to-day  the  type 
of  family  life  which  prevailed  a  generation  or 
two  ago  has  been  quite  superseded  by  a  new 
and  widely  different  type. 

The  question  now  arises,  Will  the  patri- 
archal family,  monogamous  in  form,  endure, 


14  Will  the  Home  Survive 

that  is,  the  family  with  the  father  as  head,  the 
mother  and  child  in  some  sense  his  subjects ; 
or  is  even  this  type  destined  to  pass  with  the 
new  industrial  order  ?  This  question  is  more 
serious  than  it  has  been  at  any  period  since 
the  forming  of  our  so-called  Christian  civiliza- 
tion, because  the  attack  upon  the  family  is  no 
longer  academic,  as  it  has  been  in  times  past, 
but  is  using  as  its  instrument  of  warfare  the 
popular  novel  and  drama,  the  types  of  litera- 
ture which  are  read  by  the  masses  of  men. 

This  attack  is  fraught  with  danger  just 
because  of  the  weapons  being  used.  The 
sensual  novel  and  drama,  which  unfold  the 
story  of  sexual  looseness,  make  an  appeal  to 
many  people  stronger  than  the  cold  appeal  of 
logic.  There  seems  to  be  a  morbid  sentiment 
at  the  present  time  which  responds  to  the 
erotic  in  literature.  Whether  it  has  been 
created  by  literature  of  this  type,  or  whether 
there  is  something  in  man  which  welcomes 
the  stimulus  from  this  type  of  sentiment,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  determine.  It  is  only 
necessary  for  us  to  note  this  as  a  fact.     Until 


Introduction  15 

the  publication  of  Kveutzer  Sofiata  Tolstoy 
was  read  little  outside  of  Russia.  War  and 
Peace,  The  Cossacks,  Anna  Karenina  were  his 
richest  creations,  and  from  a  literary  point  of 
view  will  form  his  chief  title  to  fame.  Yet  these 
were  not  the  things  which  made  him  famous. 
His  Kreutzer  Sonata  was  his  first  story  to  be 
published  in  all  the  European  languages. 
Its  circulation  ran  into  hundreds  of  thousands 
and  from  this  time  Tolstoy  was  placed  in  the 
front  rank  of  living  authors.  Yet  why  should 
this  story  bring  Tolstoy  into  such  promi- 
nence ?  The  book  can  scarcely  be  called  a 
short  story.  As  a  work  of  the  imagination 
there  are  no  signs  of  greatness  in  it.  It  is 
lacking  utterly  in  poetic  qualities.  The  erotic 
element  is  the  only  thing  which  can  account 
for  its  wide-spread  popularity. 

How  can  we  account  for  the  large  sale  of 
the  works  of  the  symbolists  in  France  and  of 
the  realists  in  Germany  except  by  their 
appeal  to  this  morbid  sentiment?  In  1893 
Zola's  works  had  sold  in  this  proportion  :  Nana, 
160,000;  La  Debacle,   143,000;    LAssomoir^ 


1 6  Wi/l  the  Home  Survive 

127,000;  La  Tcirc,  100,000 ;  Germinal,  88,000  ; 
La  Bete  Hzwiaine  and  Le  Rcve,  each  83,000; 
Pot-Bouille,  82,000;  as  a  contrast,  LCEiivre, 
5  5 ,000  ;  La  Joie  de  Vivre,  44,000  ;  La  Qir'ee, 
36,000;  La  Co  liquet e  de  Plassans,  25,000. 
The  novels  with  the  largest  sales  were  those 
where  lust  and  bestial  coarseness  appeared 
most  flagrantly,  and  they  decreased  in  their 
market  value  in  proportion  as  their  nastiness 
and  obscenity  became  less.  His  purest  novels 
have  the  least  sale.  Why  this  is  true  we 
must  leave  for  the  theologian  to  determine,  but 
the  fact  that  the  weapon  is  used  effectively 
only  accentuates  the  importance  of  the  attack 
that  is  being  made  upon  the  family  through 
popular  literature. 

The  second  weapon  which  is  being  used  is 
the  appeal  of  individualism,  which  is  so  strong 
in  many  minds  at  the  present  time.  Ibsen 
was  a  leader  in  this  conflict.  The  only  im- 
portant thing  in  his  sight  was  for  man  to  save 
himself.  Whatever  restricted  his  freedom, 
whether  it  was  state,  church,  or  family,  he 
regarded   as   an  enemy.     This   led   Ibsen  to 


Introduction  1 7 

rage  against  the  family  in  Dolls  House  and 
Ghosts,  and  led  him  finally  to  advocate  the 
marriage  of  convenience. 

Ibsen  has  a  host  of  followers.  Among 
English-speaking  people,  Bernard  Shaw  has 
become  a  voice  for  Ibsen  and  has  declared 
that  the  present  institution  of  the  family  must 
be  abolished  before  we  can  expect  to  produce 
a  better  race  of  men.  In  Germany  Gerhart 
Hauptman  is  a  follower  of  Ibsen,  while  in  the 
Scandinavian  world  George  Brandes  is  ap- 
pearing as  the  enemy  of  traditional  morality. 
In  France  Ibsenism  has  become  a  cult  and 
Ibsen's  social  theories  are  presented  on  the 
stage  by  many  of  the  younger  dramatists. 

A  number  of  novelists,  who  do  not  go  to 
the  extent  of  preaching  nihilism,  are  pleading 
for  the  rights  of  the  individual  as  against  the 
rights  of  society.  Elizabeth  Waltz  is  pleading 
for  greater  liberty  in  divorce  and  dedicates 
her  book  "  to  those  men  and  women  who  take 
the  larger  view  and  who  walk  in  the  light  of 
it."  Robert  Grant  in  his  Unleavened  Bread 
would    give    divorce    on  the   ground    of   in- 


1 8  Will  the  Home  Survive 

compatibility.  A  large  number  of  novelists 
of  recent  months  attack  the  traditional  theory 
of  marriage  as  a  sacrament  and  argue  for 
greater  liberty  in  making  and  breaking  the 
marriage  tie. 

A  third  source  of  attack  is  socialism. 
H.  G.  Wells  boldly  declares  that  the  present 
institution  of  the  family  must  be  modified,  and 
a  large  number  of  socialistic  novels  and 
dramas  are  pleading  for  the  modification  of 
the  family  on  the  ground  that  the  socialistic 
scheme  is  incompatible  with  the  individualistic 
family.  The  thing  which  retards  the  socialis- 
tic propaganda,  so  the  socialist  thinks,  is  the 
family,  and  he  would  destroy  the  present  form 
of  the  family  that  his  theory  may  triumph. 

Another  class  of  writers  who  are  attacking 
the  family,  is  represented  by  Max  Nordau. 
They  reject  all  spiritual  conceptions  of  the 
family  and  find  the  basis  of  love  in  the 
physical  instinct  of  sexual  passion.  This  pas- 
sion is  love.  Whenever  it  becomes  stronger 
for  one  creature  than  for  another,  the  latter 
should  be  deserted  for  the   former.     This   is 


Introduction  19 

the    underlying    thought    of    the    Right    to 
Love. 

The  mere  enumeration  of  these  sources  of 
attack  indicates  the  strength  of  their  appeal. 
Merely  to  stamp  a  thing  "  scientific,"  as  does 
Max  Nordau,  is  to  be  sure  of  its  acceptance 
by  a  m.ultitude  of  shallow  minds  to  whom 
"  scientific "  means  ultimate  authority.  To 
cry  from  any  platform,  "  Dare  to  be  yourself," 
is  such  a  challenge  to  the  self-respect  of  those 
who  are  so  small  they  are  afraid  to  lose  what 
they  already  possess,  that  it  is  certain  to 
arouse  them  to  rebellion.  The  air  is  so  full 
of  socialistic  sentiment  that  the  socialistic 
appeal  for  the  abolition  of  the  family  is  sure 
to  carry  great  weight  with  many  people,  while 
the  appeal  to  the  sexual  passion  is  almost 
irresistible  in  multitudes.  This  is  indicated  by 
the  large  sale  of  literature  dealing  with  the 
sexual  instinct. 

A  further  danger  which  arises  from  this 
attack  is  the  deception  hid  in  the  literature  in 
which  it  is  made.  These  writers  leave  the 
impression  that  the  family  is  in  a  degenerate 


20  Will  the  Home  Survive 

condition,  immoral  and  undesirable.  The 
typical  Ibsen  family  centres  about  a  Nora  or 
Mrs.  Alving,  wholly  abnormal  creatures,  rare 
in  any  community.  Yet  Ibsen  chooses  all  his 
characters  from  this  morbid  or  immoral  class, 
making  them  typical  of  the  family  as  it  exists 
at  present,  leaving  the  impression  that  the 
family  is  a  thing  no  longer  to  be  tolerated. 
Zola  calls  his  series  of  novels  "  The  Natural 
and  Social  History  of  a  Family  Under  the 
Second  Empire,"  and  leaves  the  impression 
that  he  portrays  from  actual  observ^ation  the 
average  family  of  the  French  middle  class 
under  Napoleon  III.  But  the  family  he  pic- 
tures through  twenty  weighty  volumes  is 
entirely  outside  of  normal  French  life.  It  is 
gathered  from  newspaper  reports  of  immoral- 
ity and  crimes,  and  is  in  no  degree  based  upon 
observation,  as  he  claims.  Maupassant's  nas- 
tiness  grew  out  of  his  own  immoral  life  rather 
than  degenerate  social  conditions,  and  the 
"  realism  "  of  "  young  Germany  "  with  all  its 
vulgarity  is  as  far  from  being  a  real  portrayal 
of  German  life  as  the  pure,  normal  German 


Introduction  21 

home  is  from  the  sty.  The  attempt  is  appar- 
ently made  to  create  dissatisfaction  with  the 
family  by  picturing  it  in  as  unfavorable  a  light 
as  possible,  whereas  the  average  family  life 
of  Europe  and  America  is  on  the  whole  desir- 
able and  pure. 

The  attack  on  the  family,  while  it  is  at- 
tracting more  attention  at  the  present  time 
than  ever  before,  cannot  by  any  means  be 
called  a  recent  thing.  December  loth,  1835, 
the  Federal  Diet  of  the  German  Confederation 
passed  the  following  resolution  against  the 
school  of  writers  known  as  "  young  Germany  "  : 
"In  view  of  the  fact  that  a  school  of  literature 
has  lately  come  into  existence  in  Germany,  a 
school  now  known  by  the  name  of '  young 
Germany,'  or '  the  young  literature,'  whose  aim 
is,  by  means  of  belletristic  writings,  accessible 
to  all  classes  of  readers,  imprudently  to  attack 
the  Christian  religion,  to  discredit  the  existing 
conditions  of  society,  and  to  subvert  discipline 
and  morality,  the  Council  of  the  German 
Confederation  (Bundesversammlung)  .  .  .  has 
unanimously  passed  the  following  resolutions : 


22  Will  the  Home  Survive 

All  the  German  governments  bind  them- 
selves to  bring  the  penal  and  police  statutes  of 
their  respective  countries  and  the  regulations 
regarding  the  use  of  the  press  in  their  strictest 
sense  to  bear  against  the  authors,  publishers, 
printers,  and  disseminators  of  the  writings  of 
the  literary  school  known  as '  young  Germany  ' 
or  '  the  young  Hterature,'  to  which  notably  be- 
long Heinrich  Heine,  Karl  Gutzkow,  Heinrich 
Laube,  Ludolf  Wienbarg,  and  Theodor  Mundt, 
as  also  by  all  lawful  means  to  prevent  the  dis- 
semination of  the  writings  of  this  school  by 
booksellers,  lending  libraries,  or  other  means." 
The  originator  of  this  school  of  writers  was 
Ludolf  Wienbarg,  an  earnest  but  not  especially 
gifted  man,  who  was  born  in  Altona  in  1803. 
In  1834  he  published  a  book,  the  title  of 
which  suggested  revolution,  A71  yEstlietic 
Campaign,  and  prefixed  this  dedication :  "  To 
the  young  Germany,  not  the  old,  I  dedicate 
this  book."  By  young  Germany  he  meant  the 
contemporary  writers  who  had  broken  with 
tradition,  in  art,  state,  church,  and  society,  and 
who  were  using  their  pens  in  what  they  con- 


Introduction  23 

ceived  to  be  needed  reforms.  In  reality,  the 
term  came  to  be  applied  to  a  group  of  writers 
who  had  broken  with  Christianity  and  were 
trying  to  establish  a  pantheistic  religion  for 
the  new  era.  Under  such  phrases  as  "  the 
emancipation  of  the  flesh,"  or  "  rehabilitation 
of  the  flesh,"  they  were  pleading  for  the  aboli- 
tion of  traditional  morahty  and  for  greater 
freedom  in  the  laws  regulating  the  union  and 
separation  of  the  sexes. 

Karl  Gutzkow,  born  in  Berlin  in  i8n,  was 
one  of  the  leaders  among  these  new  lights. 
He  declared  that  the  marriage  ceremony  con- 
ducted by  clergy  neither  added  to  nor  de- 
tracted from  the  sacredness  of  marriage,  and 
boldly  declaimed  against  "  the  water-soup 
weddings,  the  sordid  procreation  of  children, 
and  struggle  for  mouldy  bread,"  the  cold 
prose  of  the  ordinary  marriage.  In  Wally  he 
not  only  aired  his  religious  heterodoxy  but 
also  his  moral  heterodoxy,  his  hatred  of  the 
existing  sexual  morality.  His  interpretation 
of  the  term,  "  the  emancipation  of  the  flesh," 
is  found  in  a  scene  from   this   book   which 


^4  Will  the  Home  Survive 

caused  a  furor  in  Germany.  Wally  loves 
Caesar  and  he  loves  her,  but  they  cannot  marry 
as  she  has  been  obhged  to  betroth  herself  to 
the  Sardinian  ambassador,  Caesar  begs  of  her 
to  celebrate  a  spiritual  marriage  with  him  by 
displaying  herself  in  all  her  naked  beauty  be- 
fore him  the  night  before  her  wedding.  This 
she  does.  "  It  all  happened  in  one  breathless, 
silent  moment — it  was  sacrilege,  but  the  sac- 
rilege of  innocence  and  of  woeful,  eternal  re- 
nunciation." 

In  the  first  part  of  his  novel,  Das  Jtinge 
Europa,  Laube  sings  a  sort  of  prose  hymn  to 
female  beauty  and  free  love.  The  book  is  a 
revolt  against  Christianity  and  against  mar- 
riage. Mundt  in  his  Madonna  tells  the  story 
of  a  young  girl  who  was  prepared  for  married 
life  with  a  rich  debauchee  of  high  position. 
She  managed  to  escape  from  him  and  found 
her  way  to  the  room  of  a  theological  student 
whom  she  loved  and  who  loved  her.  With 
chaste  passion  she  gave  herself  to  him.  He 
could  not  reject  her.  The  next  day,  feeling 
the   guilt   of   his  sin,  he   committed  suicide. 


Introduction  25 

Mundt  taught  through  the  story  the  innocence 
of  the  girl's  self-abandonment  to  the  student, 
an  innocence  which  the  world  has  called  guilt. 
In  his  eyes  she  was  a  saint,  the  embodiment 
of  holiness  and  beauty,  for  in  his  creed  noth- 
ing can  be  more  holy  or  spiritual  than  the 
carnal.  Indeed,  the  spirit  and  the  flesh  must 
be  fused.  "  The  world  and  the  flesh  must  be 
reinstated  in  their  rights,  in  order  that  the 
spirit  may  no  longer  have  to  live  in  the  sixth 
story  as  it  does  in  Germany." 

Though  this  type  of  literature  as  early  as 
1835  roused  prohibitory  legislation  in  the 
Federal  Diet  and  caused  Menzel  to  write, 
"  As  long  as  I  live,  such  infamous  dishonoring 
of  German  literature  shall  not  go  unpunished," 
it  is  clear  that  such  threats  and  legislative  ac- 
tion can  no  longer  check  the  attack  that  is  ex- 
tending throughout  Christendom.  When  men 
were  in  the  midst  of  their  heated  discussions 
of  the  Holy  Trinity,  the  atonement,  eschatol- 
ogy,  and  the  higher  criticism,  they  could  still 
return  from  the  conflict  to  the  peace  and  quiet 
of  their  homes.     They   never   dreamed    that 


26  Will  the  Home  Survive 

this  holy  sanctuary  of  the  hearth  would  be- 
come the  object  of  the  critics'  arrow.  But 
that  time  has  come.  Like  all  other  institu- 
tions the  family  must  now  be  brought  to  the 
fighting  line  and  stand  or  fall  by  its  ability  to 
bear  the  attack. 

In  the  following  pages  we  purpose  to  study 
this  attack  upon  the  family  as  it  is  presented 
in  modern  literature,  especially  the  novel  and 
the  drama.  We  purpose  to  state  as  clearly  as 
possible  the  position  of  the  various  attacks  and 
then  study  their  weakness  and  their  strength. 


II 

IBSEN'S  ETHICS  OF  MARRIAGE 

Ibsen  was  as  thoroughgoing  an  individuahst 
as  the  last  century  produced.  His  one  aim  in 
life  Avas  the  development  of  himself.  What- 
ever stood  in  the  way  of  this  had  to  fall  before 
his  iron  will.  He  left  his  family  when  only  a 
boy,  because  of  some  disagreement  with  them, 
and  never  even  corresponded  with  them,  ex- 
cept later  in  life  with  his  sister,  who  was  able 
to  understand  him.  He  left  his  native  coun- 
try, going  into  willing  exile,  because  he  found 
himself  hampered  by  the  customs  and  tradi- 
tions of  his  people.  The  •'  wicked  smile  "  of 
the  "  clammy  crowd  "  froze  the  springs  of  his 
nature  and  he  had  to  get  away  from  it  to  be 
himself.  He  wrote  to  Magdalene  Thoresen : 
«*  I  had  to  get  away  from  the  beastliness  up 
there  before  I  could  begin  to  be  purified.  I 
could  never  lead  a  consistent  spiritual  life  there. 
I  was  one  man  in  my  work  and  another  out- 

?7 


28  Will  the  Home  Survive 

side  of  it — and  for  that  very  reason  my  work 
failed  in  consistency  too."  When  later  in  life 
he  visited  his  country  he  wrote :  "  I  was  no 
longer  myself  beneath  the  gaze  of  these  cold, 
uncomprehending  Norwegian  eyes  at  the  win- 
dows and  in  the  streets." 

He  not  only  denied  himself  home  and  na- 
tive country  but  also  friends,  as  they  stood  in 
the  way  of  his  self-development.  "  Friends," 
he  wrote,  "  are  an  expensive  luxury ;  and  when 
a  man's  whole  capital  is  invested  in  a  calling 
and  a  mission  in  life,  he  cannot  afford  to  keep 
them.  The  costliness  of  keeping  friends  does 
not  lie  in  what  one  does  for  them,  but  in 
what  one,  out  of  consideration  for  them,  re- 
frains from  doing.  I  have  had  personal  ex- 
perience of  it ;  and  there  are,  consequently, 
many  years  behind  me,  during  which  it  was 
not  possible  for  me  to  be  myself."  He  con- 
sidered the  end  of  life  to  be  for  each  will  and 
mind  to  press  forward  to  its  own  predestined 
path,  and  those  things  which  hindered  this 
ultimate  task  of  the  human  soul  had  to  b^ 
sacrificed. 


Ibse7i^s  Ethics  of  Marriage  29 

The  thing  which  hindered  him  among  his 
people,  and  the  thing  which  would  have  re- 
pelled him  had  he  been  compelled  to  live  as  a 
part  of  the  social  and  political  life  of  any  na- 
tion, was  the  bondage  of  men  to  the  uniformity 
of  custom  and  tradition,  and  their  lack  of 
courage  to  be  themselves  at  whatever  cost. 
He  saw  the  world  as  did  Mrs.  Alving.  We 
are  all  of  us  ghosts.  Not  only  what  we  have 
inherited  from  our  fathers  and  mothers  walks 
in  us,  but  "  all  sorts  of  dead  ideas  and  lifeless 
old  beliefs,  and  so  forth.  They  have  no  vital- 
ity, but  they  cling  to  us  all  the  same,  and  we 
can't  get  rid  of  them."  These  ghosts  are  all 
the  country  over,  "  and  we  are  one  and  all  so 
pitifully  afraid  of  the  light."  He  saw  his 
countrymen  as  "  a  well-drilled  troop,"  a  nation 
whose  "  uniformity  is  in  its  way  exemplary ; 
step  and  time  are  the  same  for  all."  Peer 
Gynt  was  the  type  of  his  nation  as  he  saw  it, 
containing  all  the  defects  of  the  national  life. 
Peer  Gynt  was  always  hedging.  He  never  fully 
committed  himself  to  any  principle  he  espoused. 
He  Hved  a  superficial  hfe.     He  dwelt  upon  the 


30  Will  the  Home  Survive 

former  grandeur  of  his  family  and  dreamed 
constantly  of  great  things  he  was  to  do  in  the 
future,  but  he  neglected  the  duties  that  were 
close  at  hand.  He  had  only  a  superstitious 
type  of  religion,  and  he  was  cynically  indiffer- 
ent to  all  the  higher  motives  of  life.  All  this 
was  unbearable  to  Ibsen,  for  it  seemed  to  be 
destructive  of  life,  and  he  went  away  from  it 
that  he  might  be  himself. 

He  was  an  egotist.  Self  in  his  vocabulary 
did  not  include  the  social  consciousness.  It 
included  only  the  world  of  his  inner  life.  This 
definition  of  self  was  practically  admitted  in  a 
letter  to  George  Brandes :  "  I  have  never 
really  had  any  firm  belief  in  solidarity ;  in  fact, 
I  have  only  accepted  it  as  a  kind  of  traditional 
dogma.  If  one  had  the  courage  to  throw  it 
overboard  altogether,  it  is  possible  that  one 
would  be  rid  of  the  ballast  which  weighs  down 
one's  personality  most  heavily.  There  are 
actually  moments  when  the  whole  history  of 
the  world  appears  to  be  like  a  great  shipwreck, 
and  the  only  important  thing  seems  to  be  to 
save  one's  self."     This  is  really  the  key-note 


Ibsen* s  Ethics  of  Marriage  31 

to  all  Ibsen's  writings.  He  lived  to  save  him- 
self, and  his  fight  was  against  any  social,  re- 
ligious, or  political  restriction  to  the  full  devel- 
opment of  his  isolated  ego. 

Liberty,  as  he  defined  it,  did  not  concern 
society,  but  rather  the  individual.  He  had  no 
faith  in  special  reforms  for  the  advancement 
of  men.  Those  who  attempt  to  make  the 
world  better  by  this  method  are  on  the  wrong 
track.  There  is  only  one  kind  of  liberty 
worth  striving  after,  that  is  the  idea  of  Uberty. 
Special  reforms  can  only  result  in  the  attain- 
ment of  certain  liberties  but  not  liberty.  True 
liberty  is  "  nothing  but  the  constant,  living  as- 
similation of  the  idea  of  freedom.  He  who 
possesses  liberty  otherwise  than  as  a  thing  to 
be  striven  for,  possesses  it  dead  and  soulless ; 
for  the  idea  of  liberty  has  undoubtedly  this 
characteristic,  that  it  develops  steadily  during 
its  assimilation.  So  that  a  man  who  stops  in 
the  midst  of  a  struggle  and  says, '  Now  I  have 
it ' — thereby  shows  that  he  has  lost  it."  The 
individual's  pursuit  of  the  idea  of  freedom,  of 
a  flying   goal,  is    the   only  thing  important. 


32  Will  the  Home  Survive 

The  struggle  for  liberty,  not  the  possession  of 
it,  is  the  great  good.  The  possession  of  it 
means  its  loss. 

This  uncompromising  individualist  saw  no 
hope  for  the  freeing  of  the  race  in  the  demo- 
cratic movements  of  the  age.  "  The  major- 
ity," he  declared,  "  are  never  right."  "  The 
most  dangerous  foe  to  truth  and  freedom  in 
our  midst  is  the  compact  majority."  For  who 
is  it  that  makes  up  the  majority  of  any  given 
country ?  Is  it  wise  men  or  fools ?  "I  think 
we  must  agree  that  the  fools  are  in  a  terrible, 
overwhelming  majority,  all  the  wide  world 
over.  The  majority  has  might,  but  right  it 
has  not.  I  and  a  few,  the  individuals,  are  right. 
The  minority  is  always  right."  The  majority, 
from  the  nature  of  the  case,  must  always  be 
far  behind  the  times.  Truth  grows  old  and 
decrepit  like  men.  Its  normal  lifetime  is  sel- 
dom outside  of  twenty  years.  Truths  older 
than  this  are  "  shockingly  thin."  Yet  it  is  not 
until  truth  has  reached  about  this  age  and  is 
ready  for  burial  that  the  majority  take  it  up. 
**  All  these  majority-truths  are  like  last  year's 


Ibsen^s  Ethics  of  Marriage  33 

salt  pork ;  they're  like  rancid,  mouldy  ham, 
producing  all  the  moral  scurvy  that  devastates 
society."  The  majority  stand  by  truths 
decrepit  with  age  and  hence  there  is  no 
possibility  of  progress  through  the  work  of 
majorities.  A  few  individuals  who  are  open 
to  truth,  from  whatever  source  it  may  come, 
are  the  ones  who  stand  as  it  were  at  the  out- 
posts of  civilization,  so  far  in  the  van  that  the 
common  majority  cannot  reach  them.  In 
them  alone,  men  who  are  true  to  themselves, 
true  to  truth,  is  found  the  hope  of  advance- 
ment. Democracy  means  stagnation,  as  does 
also  the  aristocracies  of  the  world,  which  are 
bound  by  customs  and  traditions  and  which 
are  safely  entrenched  in  their  beds  of  ease. 
Ibsen  pleads  for  an  aristocracy  of  Supermen, 
to  use  Bernard  Shaw's  phrase.  "  The  strong- 
est man  upon  earth  is  he  who  stands  most 
alone,"  alone  because  he  sees  the  truth  to 
which  all  men  must  attain  before  they  can  be 
spiritually  purified. 

This  conception  of  liberty  led  Ibsen   into 
nihilism,  the  denial  of  the  state,  as  the  state 


34  Will  the  Home  Survive 

means  the  "  maintenance  of  a  certain  given 
standpoint  of  liberty."  "  The  state  is  the 
curse  of  the  individual,"  because  it  means 
"  the  emerging  of  the  individual  into  a  certain 
political  and  geographical  concept."  The 
Jewish  nation  in  its  isolation  is  noble  and 
poetical,  the  flower  of  humanity.  It  has  been 
able  to  maintain  this  position  in  spite  of  the 
barbarity  which  it  has  suffered  from  without 
because  it  has  not  been  burdened  by  a  state. 
Had  this  race  remained  in  Palestine,  maintain- 
ing its  political  existence,  it  would  have  been 
ruined  Uke  the  other  nations  of  Europe. 
"  The  state  must  be  abolished."  Until  it  is, 
there  is  no  hope  for  ushering  in  the  great  rev- 
olution that  is  needed,  the  revolution  in  the 
spirit  of  man.  The  state  must  be  undermined, 
willing  and  spiritual  kinship  being  made  the 
only  essential  in  any  union  of  people.  The 
changing  of  the  forms  of  government  is  only 
playing  with  a  great  problem.  "  The  great 
thing  is  not  to  allow  one's  self  to  be  frightened 
by  the  venerableness  of  the  institution.  The 
state  has  its  root  in  time  ;  it  will  have  its  culmi- 


Ibse){ 5  Ethics  of  Marriage  35 

nation  in  time.  Greater  things  than  it  will  fall ; 
all  religion  will  fall.  Neither  the  conceptions 
of  morality  nor  those  of  art  are  eternal."  There 
can  be  no  universal  standard,  for  this  implies 
a  binding  force  upon  the  will  and  an  unnatural 
obedience  on  the  part  of  the  individual.  But 
this  is  destructive  of  the  idea  of  freedom.  To 
realize  ourselves  is  true  liberty.  Anything 
which  restricts  this  must  be  abolished. 

This  conception  of  the  individual  is  set 
forth  in  the  famous  funeral  oration  in  Peer 
Gynt.  The  priest  who  pronounced  the  eulogy 
over  the  dead  peasant  declared : 

"  No  patriot  was  he.     Both  for  church  and  state  a  fruitless 

tree.     But  there,  on  the  upland  ridge, 
In  the  small  circle  where  he  saw  his  calling,  there  he  was 

great,  because  he  was  himself." 

The  same  poHtical  philosophy  is  expounded 
in  Emperor  a?id  Galilean.  The  drama  presents 
a  conflict  between  church  and  state,  the  Gali- 
lean representing  the  church,  and  Julian  the 
state.  The  great  question  is,  Who  shall  con- 
quer, Emperor  or  Galilean  ?  The  clear  answer 
is :     "  Both  the  Emperor  and  Galilean  shall 


36  IVill  the  Home  Survive 

succumb."  The  process  will  be  very  gradual, 
as  the  child  succumbs  in  the  youth,  and  the 
youth  in  the  man,  but  both  are  destined  to  be 
swallowed  up  in  a  new  order  of  men.  There 
shall  come  a  man,  of  the  order  of  the  third 
kingdom,  who  shall  be  a  god-emperor,  an  em- 
peror-god. He  will  be  the  man  who  dares  to 
be  himself,  who  wills  unfettered  by  custom  and 
tradition,  who  enters  into  the  full  heritage  of 
his  spirit.  He  will  be  the  coming  messiah 
who  shall  bear  good  tidings  to  the  earth  and 
before  whom  both  Emperor  and  Galilean  shall 
fall.  In  this  coming  age  a  man  will  not  need 
to  die  to  hve  as  a  god.  He  who  wills  con- 
quers. He  who  lives  his  true  Hfe,  his  whole 
hfe,  is  divine. 

Ibsen's  conception  of  love  and  marriage  is 
a  consistent  carrying  out  of  the  formative 
principle  of  his  political  philosophy.  As  true 
freedom  consists  in  the  pursuit  of  the  idea  of 
freedom,  so  true  love  is  maintained  only  in  the 
cherishing  of  the  idea  of  love,  and  as  freedom 
is  lost  as  soon  as  one  thinks  he  has  attained  it, 
so  true  love  is  lost  in  marriage.     "  When  lov- 


Ibseti s  Ethics  of  Marriage  37 

ers  prove  what  love  is,  all  is  over  with  their 
love."  The  principle  worked  out  in  Loves 
Comedy  may  be  briefly  stated  thus  :  The  only 
way  to  maintain  a  true  love  is  to  abstain 
from  marriage,  while  for  a  fruitful  marriage 
there  must  be  an  absence  of  love.  This  is  the 
opposite  of  the  orthodox  doctrine,  which  de- 
clares that  marriage  should  be  for  love  only, 
but  it  was  just  this  orthodox  principle  which 
to  Ibsen  was  the  death  of  the  ideal  of  love. 

He  was  in  harmony  with  the  Romantic 
school  of  writers  in  his  declaration  that  love  is 
happiness  and  also  in  his  protest  against  the 
civil  and  religious  restrictions  thrown  about 
love  and  marriage.  In  1857  Camilla  Collet 
disturbed  the  Scandinavian  world  by  the  pub- 
lication of  her  novel.  The  Official's  Daughter, 
which  protested  against  the  social  restrictions 
upon  love  and  plead  for  the  right  of  woman 
to  give  her  heart  how  and  where  she  would. 
Ibsen  also  made  Falk  say  : 

•'  Yes,  to  pass  current  here,  Love  must  have  cross'd 
The  great  Siberian  waste  of  regulations, 
Fann'd  by  no  breath  of  ocean  to  its  coast ; 
It  must  produce  official  attestations 


4:344J29 


38  Will  the  Ho7ne  Survive 

From  friends  and  kindred,  devils  of  relations, 
From  church  curators,  organist  and  clerk, 
And  other  fine  folk,  over  and  above 
The  primal  license  which  God  gave  to  love." 

The  result  is : 

"  Love  is  with  us  a  trade,  a  special  line 
Of  business,  with  its  union,  code,  and  sign ; 
It  is  a  guild  of  married  folks  and  plighted, 
Past-masters  with  apprentices  united." 

But  while  Ibsen  was  in  harmony  with  the 
Romanticists  in  his  protest  against  law  and 
custom,  which  restricted  the  free  course  of 
the  individual,  he  differed  from  them  in  his 
conclusions  concerning  marriage.  With  the 
Romanticists  love  is  happiness  and  marriage 
unrestricted  the  end  of  love,  but  Ibsen  says,  if 
you  would  maintain  your  love  and  feel  always 
the  joy  of  it  do  not  marry  at  all.  Love  is  a 
passion  which  can  maintain  itself  only  in  pur- 
suit. When  it  reaches  its  goal  it  dies.  Mar- 
riage is  its  sentence  of  death.  As  soon  as 
Stiver  becaine  engaged  to  Miss  Jay  he  lost  the 
romance  from  his  nature,  which  in  the  days  of 
his  love-making  had  made  him  a  poet.  He 
felt  "  no  lyric  impulse,  truth  to  tell,  from  that 


Ibsen's  Ethics  of  Marriage  39 

day  forth,"  and  the  parson's  wife, "  she  can't 
remember  being  wooed,  has  quite  forgotten 
what  is  meant  by  love."  Svanhild  discovers 
this  principle  and,  though  she  loves  Falk  in- 
tensely, she  sees  that  for  her  own  happiness 
she  must  not  marry  him.  Her  love  must  be- 
come a  memory.  Enthroned  there  it  can 
never  perish  and  her  happiness  can  never  pass 
away.  In  losing  her  love  she  finds  it.  De- 
taching it  from  all  sense  and  passion  and  ma- 
terial thing,  it  remains  in  its  purity. 

Her  lover,  at  first  pained  by  her  refusal, 
finally  sees  the  truth  and  cries : 

"  Now  I  divine  ! 
Thus  and  no  otherwise  canst  thou  be  mine ! 
As  the  grave  opens  into  life's  Dawn-fire, 
So  love  with  life  may  not  espoused  be 
Till,  loosed  from  longing  and  from  wild  desire, 
It  soars  into  the  heaven  of  memory." 

To  which  Svanhild  replies  : 

"  Now  for  this  earthly  life  I  have  foregone  thee 
But  for  the  life  eternal  I  have  won  thee." 

This  conception  of  love  seems  to  be  an  out- 
growth of  Ibsen's  experience.  His  biographer 
describes    a  poem   that  was    written  by  him 


40  Will  the  Home  Survive 

some  time  between  his  nineteenth  and  twenty- 
second  years,  entitled,  Recollections  of  a  ball : 
a  fragment  of  life  in  verse  and  prose.  He  met 
at  the  ball  a  young  woman  who  seemed  to  em- 
body all  that  he  would  have  in  the  woman  he 
was  some  day  to  wed.  But  he  heard  that  she 
was  engaged  and  he  wrote :  "  Fate !  take  from 
me  this  overwhelming  bliss,  do  not  desecrate 
this  moment  by  prolonging  it.  I  have  had  it 
— what  would  I  more  ?  "  Her  memory  re- 
mained his  possession  to  bless  and  enrich  his 
life.  He  makes  Hjordis  in  the  Vikings,  who 
was  denied  the  bliss  she  sought  with  Sigurd, 
say  at  the  point  of  death  :  "  O  it  is  better  so 
than  if  thou  hadst  wedded  me  here  in  this 
life — if  I  had  sat  by  thy  homestead  weaving 
linen  and  wool  for  thee  and  bearing  thee  chil- 
dren, pah  !  "  King  Skule  declared  to  his  wife, 
after  he  had  discovered  her  love  for  him,  and 
his  love  for  her :  "  To-night  have  I  found  you 
for  the  first  time ;  there  must  fall  no  shade  be- 
tween me  and  you,  my  silent,  faithful  wife  ; — 
therefore  must  we  not  seek  to  unite  our  lives 
on  this  earth." 


Ibsen' s  Ethics  of  Marriage  41 

Mr.  C.  H.  Herford  finds  something  heroic  in 
this  loneliness  in  which  Ibsen  makes  his  char- 
acters  stand    for   the    sake   of    love,    in   this 
"  ascetic  idealism,"  but  rather  there  seems  to 
be  more  of  cowardice,  the  cowardice  of  the 
timid  soul  that  longs  for  the  sight  of  the  old 
world,    cathedrals    rich    with    age,    galleries 
crowded  with  works  of  art,  and  people  inter- 
esting   in  their  customs  and  strange  doings, 
but  which  has  not  the  courage  to  brave  the 
sea  with  its  storms  and  its  inconveniences.     It 
is   the  cowardice  of  the  men  who  looked  into 
the  strange  land  and  saw  its  great  clusters  of 
grapes,  its  figs  and  pomegranates,  yet  dared 
not  enter  for  fear  of  pitfalls.     Ibsen's  charac- 
ters look  into  the  rich  land  of  love  and  taste 
its  fruits,  but  refuse  to  enter  because  there  are 
snares  and  foes,  and  they  turn  back  to  hold 
the  vision  in  the  ecstasy  of  memory,  drawing 
their  comfort  out  of  the  memory  itself.     There 
is   something   more   truly    heroic    in    Robert 
Louis   Stevenson's   conception   of   the  lover: 
"  The  great  lover,  like  the  great  painter,  is  he 
that  can  so  embellish  his   subject  as  to  make 


42  Will  the  Home  Survive 

her  more  than  human,  whilst  yet  by  a  cunning 
art  he  has  so  based  his  apotheosis  on  the 
nature  of  the  case  that  the  woman  can  go  on 
being  a  true  woman,  and  give  her  character 
free  play,  and  show  littleness  or  cherish  spite, 
or  be  greedy  of  common  pleasures,  and  he 
continue  to  worship  without  a  thought  of  in- 
congruity. To  love  a  character  is  only  the 
heroic  way  of  understanding  it."  In  other 
words,  the  true  lover  will  continue  to 
love  in  the  face  of  imperfections  and  incon- 
gruities. He  is  not  compelled  to  deny  himself 
the  happiness  of  the  consummation  of  his 
love,  and  retire  into  the  loneliness  of  his  soul, 
untouched  by  the  dust  of  earth,  to  retain  his 
joy.  He  is  the  courageous  lover  who  accepts 
life  as  it  is  and  is  strong  enough  to  love  in 
spite  of  the  limitations  which  surround  the 
marriage  state. 

What  seems  truly  heroic  is  for  Svanhild  to 
calmly  say. 


"  Now  over  is  my  life,  by  lea  and  lawn, 
The  leaves  are  falling ;— now  the  world  may  take  me," 


IbseiUs  Ethics  of  Marriage  43 

and  then,  with  a  passionless  abandonment,  give 
herself  in  marriage  to  the  cold,  practical  Guld- 
stad,  not  for  love,  but  just  because  she  owes  it 
to  the  world.  Indeed  it  is  such  an  unnatural 
closing  to  an  otherwise  powerful  drama  that  we 
lose  our  interest  in  it. 

This,  however,  is  only  one  side  of  Ibsen's 
thought  concerning  love  and  marriage.  For 
any  understanding  of  Ibsen  we  must  see  in 
him  a  trinity  of  tendencies.  He  was  an  ideal- 
ist, a  stern,  merciless  critic,  and  still  a  practical 
man.  In  Loves  Comedy,  Ibsen  the  idealist 
speaks,  enthroning  love  high  above  degrading 
passions,  but  in  Dolls  House,  Ghosts,  and  The 
Lady  from  the  Sea,  there  is  nothing  but  the 
critic,  bitter  in  dealing  with  human  frailty, 
seeing  all  society  sick,  and  ministering  to  it  a 
nauseous  and  astringent  dose.  As  this  critic 
saw  the  death  of  the  individual  in  the  state,  so 
in  marriage  he  saw  pitfalls  from  which  the  in- 
dividual could  not  save  himself,  when  once 
he  entered. 

This  is  the  meaning  of  Doll's  House.     Nora 
married  and  in  her  marriage  she  lost  her  life. 


44  Will  the  Home  Survive 

The  institution  smothered  her  soul  and  the  only 
way   she   could    regain   her  life   was    in   the 
desertion     of    her     husband    and    children. 
While  their  home  had  been  apparently  ideal, 
it    had   never   been  a   happy   home,  only   a 
merry  one.     Her  house  had  been  a  playhouse. 
She  had  been  a  doll  wife  and  her  children  had 
been   her   playthings.      When   this   situation 
dawned  upon  her  she  saw  for  the  first  time 
how  she  had  never  had  any  opportunity  to  be 
herself.     The   discovery  was  unbearable  and 
she  started  in  quest  of  her  self-hood,  leaving 
home,  husband,  and  children.     The  husband 
urged  upon  her  the  scandalous  gossip  of  the 
world,  but  to  that  she  could  pay  no  heed ;  she 
must  be  herself.     He  urged  duties  to  husband 
and  children,  but  she  declared  that  she  had  other 
duties   equally  sacred,  duties  to  herself.     But 
"  before  all  else,"  he   urged,  "  you  are  a  wife 
and  a  mother."     ♦'  That  I  no  longer  believe," 
she  replied.     "  I  think  that  before  all  else  I  am 
a  human  being,  or  at  least  I  will  try  to  become 
one."     She   was    conscious   that   the   people 
generally  agreed  with  the  position  that  her 


Ibsen! s  Ethics  of  Alarriage  45 

husband  had  taken  but  she  could  not  be  satis- 
fied with  what  people  thought.  He  finally 
urged  upon  her  the  infallible  voice  of  her  re- 
ligion. But  she  knew  nothing  about  rehgion 
except  what  her  clergyman  had  taught  her. 
"  He  explained  that  religion  was  this  and  that. 
When  I  get  away  from  here  and  stand  alone,  I 
will  look  into  that  matter  too.  I  will  see 
whether  what  he  has  taught  me  is  true,  or,  at 
any  rate,  whether  it  is  true  for  me."  She 
thought  her  life  had  been  smothered  under 
these  institutions,  and  almost  in  defiance  she 
threw  off  the  things  that  stood  in  the  way  of 
her  development  and  went  in  quest  of  her  self- 
hood. As  Svanhild  saved  her  love  by  refus- 
ing to  give  it  material  expression,  so  Nora  lost 
her  love,  and  as  a  last  hope  she  fled  from  the 
institution. 

The  same  idea  finds  expression  in  The 
League  of  Youth,  where  Selma  discovers  that 
she  has  been  a  spiritual  pauper  in  her  home, 
never  accorded  the  privilege  of  making  any 
sacrifice  or  bearing  any  burden,  and  indig- 
nantly she  declares  ;   "  How  I've  thirsted  for  a 


46  IVill  the  Home  Survive 

single  drop  of  your  troubles,  your  anxieties  ! 
But  when  I  begged  for  it  you  only  laughed 
me  off.  You  have  dressed  me  up  like  a  doll ; 
you  have  played  with  me  as  you  have  played 
with  a  child.  I  won't  stay  with  you.  I'll 
rather  play  and  sing  in  the  streets."  But  Selma 
had  not  Nora's  strong  will  and  she  returned  to 
her  home. 

Ibsen's  criticism  of  the  family  is  most  severe 
in  Ghosts.  Doll's  House  was  published  in 
1879,  and  its  appearance  called  down  upon 
Ibsen  a  flood  of  indignation.  He  was  irritated 
by  the  severe  criticism  of  this  play  and  he 
gave  his  answer  to  the  enraged  public  in  this 
most  cutting,  deleterious,  and  loathsome  drama 
that  ever  came  from  his  pen.  DoWs  House 
told  the  story  of  a  battle  of  a  woman  to  be 
herself  and  her  escape  from  the  family  which 
held  her  in  bondage,  while  Ghosts  showed  the 
terrible  consequences  which  result  from  com- 
pelling a  soul  to  remain  in  bondage  to  the 
family  when  the  relation  between  man  and 
woman  are  neither  wholesome  nor  congenial. 
Mrs.  Alving  had  been  married  to  Alving  only 


Ibsen^s  Ethics  of  Marriage  47 

a  little  while  when  she  discovered  that  he  had 
long  lived,  and  was  still  living,  a  dissolute  life, 
and  she  deserted  him,  going  in  search  of  her 
happiness.  Her  pastor,  however,  persuaded 
her  in  the  name  of  law  and  order  and  decency 
to  return  to  her  husband.  She  returned, 
hating  her  husband,  to  Hve  until  his  death  a 
life  of  misery.  After  the  death  of  Alving  she 
discussed  this  marriage  with  her  pastor,  who 
rebuked  her  for  her  free  thinking,  her  belief  in 
irregular  marriages,  and  her  doubt  of  old  and 
cherished  beliefs.  Her  husband  had  become 
the  father  of  a  child  born  of  their  servant  maid. 
This  unfortunate  girl  received  a  small  sum  of 
hush-money  from  Alving,  and  she  found  one 
Engstrand  who  was  willing  to  assume  Alving's 
sin  and  marry  her  for  this  sum  of  money. 
The  pastor  was  horrified  at  this  story.  "  Think  ! 
think  of  that !  for  a  miserable  three  hundred 
dollars  to  go  and  marry  a  fallen  woman!" 
"  Then  what  have  you  to  say  to  me  ?  "  asked 
Mrs.  Alving.  "  I  went  and  married  a  fallen 
man."  "  But  there's  a  world  of  difference  be- 
tween the  two  cases,"  he  urged.     "  Not   so 


48  Will  the  Ho7ne  Survive 

much  difference  after  all,"  she  replied,  "  except 
ill  the  price — a  wretched  three  hundred  dol- 
lars and  a  whole  fortune."  But  there  remains 
this  difference  at  least :  "  Your  marriage  was 
in  accordance  with  law  and  order."  Now 
Ibsen  brings  his  blow  again  against  society : 
"  That  perpetual  law  and  order  !  That  does 
all  the  mischief  here  in  this  world."  In  the 
hour  when  her  pastor  forced  her  under  the 
yoke  of  duty  and  obligation,  when  he  praised 
as  right  and  proper  what  her  whole  soul  re- 
belled against  as  something  loathsome,  she  be- 
gan to  see  the  hollowness  of  social  customs, 
the  machine-made  character  of  doctrines,  and 
picking  one  single  knot  "  the  whole  thing  rav- 
eled out."  The  entire  structure  of  society  as 
it  has  to  do  with  the  family  is  mechanical, 
hollow,  false.  When  her  pastor  in  the  name 
of  society  forced  her  back  to  her  lawful  hus- 
band he  committed  a  crime,  bringing  torture 
to  her  own  soul  and  hell  into  the  life  of  her 
family.  The  awful  working  out  of  this  play, 
centering  about  immorality,  destruction,  de- 
generacy, and  raving  insanity  in  a  son  who 


Ibsen^s  Ethics  of  Marriage  49 

reaps  what  his  father  has  sown,  all  intensified 
by  the  height  of  Ibsen's  dramatic  power,  is  the 
measure  of  the  crime  which  society  commits 
in  the  name  of  duty  and  obligation  in  family 
life. 

After  the  severe  criticism  to  which  Ghosts 
was  subjected,  Ibsen  denied  that  it  expressed 
his  opinion.  "  There  is  not  in  the  whole  book 
a  single  opinion,  a  single  utterance,  which  can 
be  laid  to  the  account  of  the  author.  It 
merely  points  out  that  there  is  a  ferment  of 
nihilism  under  the  surface,  at  home  as  else- 
where. And  this  is  inevitable.  A  Pastor 
Manders  will  always  rouse  some  Mrs.  Alving 
to  revolt."  We  have  no  reason  to  doubt 
Ibsen's  sincerity  in  this  declaration,  but  this 
"  ferment  of  nihilism  "  was  the  ferment  which 
from  first  to  last  stirred  Ibsen's  mind,  the  spirit 
which  he  fostered  in  all  his  works.  Mrs. 
Alving  may  have  carried  it  to  an  extreme,  but 
she  acted  along  the  line  which,  in  both  letters 
and  dramas,  Ibsen  advocates.  If  the  book 
does  not  preach,  and  if  he  labored  to  exclude 
his  opinions  from  the  book,  it  at  least  breathes 


50  Will  the  Home  Survive 

with  his  spirit,  and  the  student  of  Ibsen  will 
always  look  to  Ghosts  as  the  most  tragic  pres- 
entation of  both  his  scientific  and  philosophical 
theories. 

The  Lady  from  the  Sea  is  one  of  Ibsen's 
most  difficult  dramas  to  interpret.  It  belongs 
to  those  symbolical  plays  which  Ibsen  wrote 
after  the  appearance  of  his  coarsely  realistic 
writings  which  sacrificed  beauty  and  imagina- 
tion to  truth,  and  there  will  always  be  a  wide 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  what  Ibsen's 
thought  was  in  this  play.  Howev^er,  the  main 
drift  of  his  thought  seems  to  be  clear.  He  is 
here,  as  elsewhere,  the  same  advocate  for  the 
individual.  EUida,  after  years  of  married  life, 
discovered  that  she  had  been  bought,  or  rather 
that  she  had  sold  herself.  Wangel,  a  widower, 
could  not  endure  the  void  in  his  house.  He 
wanted  a  mother  for  his  children,  while  Ellida 
was  helpless  and  forlorn  and  utterly  alone. 
What  more  natural  than  that  she  should  jump 
at  the  bargain.  She  sold  herself,  rather  her 
freedom,  her  right  to  choose.  Their  Hfe  to- 
gether had  not  been  utterly  valueless  nor  en- 


Ibseti^s  Ethics  of  Marriage  5 1 

tirely  lacking  in  happiness,  but  she  did  not  go 
into  his  home   of  her  own  free  will,  "  that  is 
the  thing."     Hence  the  life  they  led  together 
was  really  no  marriage  at  all.     Only  a  volun- 
tary promise  can   make  a  marriage  binding. 
She  must  have  her  freedom,  her  right  to  make 
a  free  choice.     She  does  not  care  for  a  formal, 
legal  divorce,  because  forms  are  nothing  to  her. 
"  I  lay  no  stress  whatever  upon  these  external 
details.     What  1  wish   is   that  we  two  should 
aorree,  of  our  own  free  will,  to  release  each 
other."     They  must    freely  cancel    the    mar- 
riage bargain.     After  a  long  struggle  Wangel 
consented  to  do  this,  giving  her  perfect  free- 
dom to  choose  between  him  and  the  Stranger, 
at  the  same  time  confessing  how  his  love  for 
her  had  deepened.     When  she  discovered  this, 
and  at  the  same  time  discovered  that  she  might 
do  as  she  would,  that  she  might  be  an  individ- 
ual with    free  choice,    she  said  to   Wangel : 
"  Now  I  will  come  to  you  again.     Now  I  can, 
for  now  I  come  to  you  in  freedom,  of  my  owit 
will,  and  on  my  own  responsibility."     She  was 
saved  by  the  right  to  choose,  the  thing  which. 


52  Will  the  Home  Survive 

denied  to  Nora  and  Mrs.  Alving,  resulted  in 
the  loss  of  their  spirituality. 

We  find  Ibsen  in  his  later  life  defending  the 
marriage  of  convenience.  It  was  natural  that 
this  hater  of  institutions  should  defend  this 
type  of  marriage.  In  his  eyes  a  justice  of  the 
peace  or  a  parson  could  not  make  marriage 
one  whit  more  sacred  by  their  presence. 
Only  a  real  communion  between  two  souls 
can  constitute  a  marriage — a  communion  that 
is  nourished  in  freedom.  Rosmer  says  to 
Rebecca:  "  Even  during  Beata's  life,"  that  is, 
his  first  wife,  "  all  my  thoughts  were  for  you. 
It  was  you  alone  I  longed  for.  It  was  beside 
you  that  I  felt  the  peaceful  blessedness  of 
utter  content.  If  you  think  it  over,  Rebecca, 
did  we  not  feel  from  the  first  a  sort  of  sweet, 
secret,  child-love — desireless,  dreamless  ?  And 
it  was  this  close-linked  life  in  and  for  each 
other  that  we  took  for  friendship.  No, 
Rebecca,  our  bond  has  been  a  spiritual  mar- 
riage." When  this  bond  exists  law  and  cus- 
tom can  add  nothing  to  it.  It  is  a  marriage  if 
free  consent  is  given. 


IsberHs  Ethics  of  Marriage  53 

Oswald  defends  the  young  artists  of  Paris 
who  cannot  afford  to  marry,  set  up  a  home, 
and  support  a  family,  but  who  can  have  a 
home,  as  many  of  them,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
do,  homes  very  pleasant  and  comfortable  too. 
The  clergyman  is  shocked  at  such  irregularity, 
but  Oswald  declares  that  he  has  "  never 
noticed  anything  particularly  irregular  about 
the  Ufe  these  people  lead."  It  may  not  be  a 
decent  principle  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  but 
what  are  these  young  artists  to  do  ?  "A  poor 
young  artist, — a  poor  girl — it  costs  a  lot  to  get 
married.  What  are  they  to  do  ?  "  They  must 
exercise  self-restraint,  declares  the  clergyman. 
But  "  such  talk  won't  go  far  with  warm-blooded 
young  people,  over  head  and  ears  in  love,"  de- 
clares Oswald. 

To  use  his  expression,  if  they  are  "  head  over 
ears  in  love,"  then  they  have  the  elements 
necessary  for  the  married  life.  Nature  has 
been  satisfied ;  nothing  else  has  a  right  to 
speak. 

In  any  just  estimate  of  this  poet  of  revolt 
the  country  or  time  in  which  he  lived  must 


54  Will  the  Home  Survive 

not  be  forgotten.  Norway,  as  one  writer  has 
said,  "  before  1870  was  a  country  of  timid 
thoughts  and  vapid  appreciations.  There  the 
spiritual  soil  was  dense  and  dry ;  nothing 
could  be  done  to  vitahze  it  until  the  plough- 
share ran  deep  into  its  substance,  and  let  in 
light  and  air  by  breaking  up  the  old  conven- 
tions and  smashing  the  hypocrisies  to  bits." 
It  is  impossible  to  tell  what  Ibsen  might  have 
been  in  unconventional  America  or  semi- 
civilized  Russia.  He  doubtless  would  have 
been  something  far  different  from  the  man  he 
was.  But  being  by  early  influences  a  stern 
Puritan  of  the  individualistic  type,  it  was 
natural  that,  as  a  product  of  Norway,  he 
should  be  the  man  of  revolution.  Indeed,  in 
all  of  Europe  in  the  third  quarter  of  the  last 
century,  when  everything  was  expected  from 
the  state,  when  the  individual  was  only  ex- 
pected to  fit  into  a  monotonous  political  and 
commercial  system,  when  militarism  was  being 
extended,  it  was  a  time  for  men  to  cry  out  for 
the  salvation  of  their  souls.  When  kings  or- 
ganize states,  and  reformers  exalt  the  machin- 


Ibsen^s  Ethics  of  Marriage  55 

ery  of  government  above  the  souls  of  men, 
strong   men,   conscious    of  their   power,  will 
rebel,   refusing   to   be   smothered    under   the 
closely   knit    web    of  things.     Ibsen    uttered 
such  a  cry,  a  cry  which  we  have  all  uttered 
some  time  in  our  lives.     When  the  zealous  re- 
lisionist   comes    to    us   in   his  thus-saith-the- 
Lord  attitude  and  insists  upon  our  acceptance 
of  his  creed,  because  it  alone  is  right ;  when 
the  big  shop  window  insists  that  we  shall  wear 
such  an  article  of  clothing  because  Mr.  Style- 
setter  declares  that  everybody  shall  wear  it ; 
when  we  must  do  certain   things   in   certain 
ways  or  be  considered  queer,  simply  because  it 
has  been  the  custom  to  do  them  in  that  way  ; 
yes,  when   mother  insists  that  Elizabeth  shall 
marry  John  because  he  is  from  a  good  family 
and  has  a  fortune,  though  her  heart  is  only 
lukewarm ;  when  law  and  custom  insist  upon 
holding  together  man  and  wife  when  there  is 
no  longer  a  true  marriage,  a  communion    of 
spirits ;  in  short,  when  organized  religion,  or 
society,  or    politics,  or   labor   are  so  exalted 
that  the  individual  is  lost,  then  there  is  some- 


56  IVill  the  Honie  Survive 

thing  in  all  of  us  which  cries :  I  will  be 
myself  though  everything  else  must  go. 
Ibsen  uttered  this  cry  in  language  that  offended 
the  custom-bound  world  ;  nevertheless,  he  has 
uttered  a  cry  which  comes  from  all  of  us  in  our 
noblest  moods. 

Yet  while  there  are  noble  ideals  in  Ibsen, 
ideals  that  at  once  awe  and  charm  us,  so  pure 
and  high  are  they,  there  can  be  no  question 
that  his  philosophy  in  the  last  analysis  is  bold 
and  uncompromising  selfishness.  The  isolated 
individual,  lonely  in  the  solitary  pursuit  of  its 
ideal,  is  the  centre  of  all  his  thought.  He 
was  never  a  patriot  in  the  sense  in  which  other 
men  are  patriots,  because  of  his  opposition  to 
the  institution  of  the  state.  He  did,  however, 
possess  a  certain  type  of  vague  patriotism  in 
his  belief  in  Scandinavianism,  but  this  was  only 
a  hope  for  the  spiritual  union  of  the  Scandi- 
navian races,  a  union  to  be  accomplished  by 
the  revolution  in  the  spiritual  life  of  individu- 
als, a  revolution  which  would  enable  each  in- 
dividual, unfettered  by  institutions,  to  attain  to 
the   fulness    of  selfhood.     But  later  in  life  he 


Ibsen^s  Ethics  of  Marriage  57 

lost  even  this.  He  wrote  to  George  Brandes : 
"  I  began  by  feeling  myself  to  be  a  Norwegian ; 
then  I  developed  into  a  Scandinavian ;  and  I 
have  ended  in  Teutonism,"  This  only  means 
in  reality  that  he  ended  in  cutting  himself 
loose  from  humanity,  from  all  tangible  relation- 
ships with  the  great  social  fabric,  so  far  as  it  is 
possible  for  a  man  to  do  this,  and  sought  with 
the  freedom  of  an  eagle,  soaring  in  its  isola- 
tion, the  interests  of  his  personality.  The 
great  movements  of  the  age,  which  work  for 
the  social  uplift  of  humanity,  the  movement  of 
the  social  consciousness  which  fills  our  time  as 
the  incoming  tide  fills  the  harbor  and  makes 
all  the  shores  sing  songs  of  rejoicing,  were  re- 
pulsive to  Ibsen,  were  the  death  of  what  he 
thought  was  the  great  good,  and  he  stood 
apart  from  them,  fighting  them  to  the  end  of 
his  days. 

It  sounds  exceedingly  attractive  to  hear 
Ibsen  say  that  the  end  of  life  is  to  be  one's 
self,  but  the  very  attractiveness  of  the  state- 
ment may  hide  the  error  it  contains.  We 
must  ask  the  further  question :     What  is  it  to 


58  Will  the  Home  Survive 

be  one's  self?  What  is  the  predestined  path? 
Is  it  to  follow  whatever  concerns  one's  self  and 
count  all  else  as  non-existent?  Or  to  develop 
the  best  life  must  we  also  follow  what  concerns 
our  neighbor  ?  Is  the  ideal  egoism  or  altruism, 
or  perchance  does  the  ideal  include  both  egoism 
and  altruism  ?  Is  the  ideal  man  some  Robin- 
son Crusoe,  who  develops  all  his  faculties  to 
the  highest  point  to  which  his  egoism  will 
carry  him,  or  is  he  some  Lincoln  who  enriches 
his  personality  through  giving  it  for  others  ? 
Ibsen  advocated  the  former,  but  he  has  not 
succeeded  in  making  his  characters  either 
beautiful  or  lovable,  and  indeed  there  is  an 
element  of  estrangement  from  his  fellow  men 
about  his  own  Hfe  that  will  not  lure  many  into 
his  manner  of  living.  He  began  to  write 
when  science  was  in  its  beginnings  and  its  great 
teachings  had  not  been  thought  out  to  the  end. 
The  cruel,  merciless  law  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest  was  being  preached  as  the  eternal  gos- 
pel. The  struggle  for  existence  had  not  been 
matched  by  the  more  merciful  law  of  the 
struggle  for  the  existence  of  others.     Ibsen 


Ibsen^s  Ethics  of  Marriage  59 

applied  this  law  to  the  social  creation  and 
failed  to  see  the  greater  truth  that  no  man  can 
live  unto  himself  and  attain  the  highest  life. 

This  brings  us  to  another  defect,  a  grave  in- 
tellectual defect  in  all  Ibsen's  thought,  namely, 
the  antagonism  which  he  always  finds  between 
spirit  and  form.  An  institution,  instead  of 
being  a  thing  through  which  the  deepest  life 
of  man  may  express  itself,  is  always  with  him 
the  deadly  foe  of  the  spiritual  life.  State, 
church,  and  family,  instead  of  being  the  three 
noblest  channels  through  which  humanity 
could  realize  itself,  were  the  three  shackles 
which  held  it  in  bondage.  The  imperfection 
of  institutions  loomed  so  large  in  Ibsen's  eyes 
that  he  could  see  nothing  good.  He  was  in- 
capable of  finding  diamonds  in  the  dust  heap 
or  gold  in  the  gutter.  He  could  not  hear  a 
song  in  the  mud  and  scum  of  things.  He 
found  no  glory  in  the  imperfect.  He  was  too 
impatient  to  wait  for  the  evolution  of  some- 
thing better  out  of  the  present  state  of  human- 
ity. Indeed,  he  was  so  much  of  a  pessimistic 
fatalist  that  he  could  not  even  hope  for  any- 


6o  Will  the  Home  Survive 

thing  better.  Institutions  were  bad  ;  therefore 
away  with  them  was  his  stern  command. 
Here  Hes  his  fundamental  weakness.  His 
ideals  are  often  noble  but  they  are  disem- 
bodied spirits  flitting  through  space,  to  allure 
or  to  frighten,  incapable  of  taking  the  form  of 
muscle  and  nerve  and  bone,  and  becoming 
servants  to  the  poor  in  spirit,  the  blind,  the 
bruised,  and  those  in  prison.  Priding  himself 
upon  his  realism,  Ibsen  was  in  reality  the  chief 
of  idealists,  the  idealist  who  saw  visions  and 
dreamed  dreams  but  who  cut  from  beneath 
himself  the  very  means  of  making  his  dreams 
and  visions  real. 

An  insuperable  barrier  to  Ibsen's  wide- 
spread popularity  among  English-speaking 
people  is  his  pessimism.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
has  never  rejoiced  over  the  news  of  the  failure 
of  existence,  and  the  author  who  makes  such 
an  announcement  may  be  certain  of  slight 
consideration.  Our  great  writers,  who  have 
won  universal  favor,  have  believed  that  "  all's 
right  with  the  world."  In  this  optimism  we 
have  been  nourished  and  we  do  not  propose  to 


Ibsen^s  Ethics  of  Marriage         6i 

begin  our  funeral  march  to  the  grave  at  this 
late  hour.  Ibsen  was  a  born  doubter.  Once 
asked  what  were  the  elements  which  supported 
his  early  life  he  replied,  "  Doubt  and  Despond- 
ency." His  childhood  spent  without  affection, 
his  youth  spent  in  a  struggle  for  existence,  he 
was  destined  for  a  Yiie.  of  doubt  and  despair,  if 
ever  a  life  was  destined  for  such  an  end. 
Beginning  by  doubting  the  religion  of  his 
childhood  and  the  social  structure  of  which  he 
was  a  part,  he  ended  by  doubting  even  his 
own  ideals.  In  Wild  Duck  he  seems  to  doubt 
his  own  thoughts  and  turn  from  his  own 
visions.  It  is  a  sickening  picture  of  the  use- 
lessness  of  all  ideals  and  the  hopelessness  of  all 
advancement.  The  principle  of  heredity  and 
the  force  of  environment  are  too  strong  for  the 
human  will.  Men  like  Rosmer  may  see  the 
truth  and  long  for  freedom,  but  their  wills  are 
not  strong  enough.  In  vain  they  aspire  to  any- 
thing better.  The  world  is  on  the  wrong 
track  and  it  will  continue  on  the  wrong  track. 
Ibsen  sees  something  beautiful  in  Lovborg 
committing  suicide,  "  for  he  had  the  courage 


62  Will  the  Home  Survive 

to  live  his  life  after  his  own  fashion,"  but 
people  generally  have  not  even  the  courage  to 
do  this.  They  are  prisoners  to  a  system  of 
things.  They  are  Ghosts,  the  weird  products 
of  a  dead  past.  Here  we  believe  is  the  real 
barrier  which  debars  Ibsen  from  the  English 
mind.  The  air  in  which  he  lives  suffocates  us. 
In  it  we  cannot  live.  God  created  the  world 
and  behold  it  was  very  good,  is  more  inviting 
to  our  happy  spirits. 


Ill 

BERNARD  SHAW  AND  THE  SUPERMAN 

Whether  to  take  Bernard  Shaw  seriously 
or  as  a  huge  joke  (if  the  latter  we  must  confess 
a  rather  tragic  one),  are  feelings  which  alter- 
nate, sometimes  in  rapid  succession,  as  we 
read  his  wild,  anarchistic  shrieks,  for  nothing 
less  than  this  can  they  be  termed.  When  we 
hear  him  lamenting  the  calamity  of  being  sent 
to  heaven  because  it  is  "  the  most  angelically 
dull  place  in  all  creation,"  and  see  the  elect  of 
earth  seeking  hell  because  of  its  delights,  we 
scarcely  know  whether  to  take  him  as  a  foolish 
jester  on  the  most  serious  of  themes,  or  as  a 
self-appointed  town-crier  who  goes  about 
shrieking  simply  that  he  may  be  heard. 
Were  it  not  for  our  principle  that  every  writer 
must  be  taken  seriously  until  proven  other- 
wise, we  should  certainly  place  Bernard  Shaw 
in  the  list  of  modern  clowns,  but  as  he  claims 
to  be  serious  we  must  take  him  at  his  word 

63 


64  Will  the  Home  Survive 

and  regard  him  as  one  of  the  extreme  revolu- 
tionists of  our  day,  not  only  against  govern- 
ment but  against  the  institution  of  the  family. 
His  fundamental  complaint  is  against  the 
"  hoofs  of  the  swinish  multitude  "  which  has 
received  the  power  of  suffrage,  yet  which  is 
incapable  of  ruling  the  world  and  will  bring 
us  to  our  ruin  unless  we  can  produce  a  better 
race  of  men.  Promiscuous  marriage  breeds  a 
race  of  men  which  may  govern  a  small  tribe 
but  which  is  utterly  incapable  of  dealing  with 
the  great  problems  of  state  and  is  hopelessly 
blind  w^hen  it  comes  to  dealing  with  the 
modern  world  of  international  politics.  "  We 
have  yet  to  see  the  man  who,  having  any 
practical  experience  of  Proletarian  Democracy, 
has  any  belief  in  its  capacity  for  solving  great 
political  problems,  or  even  for  doing  ordinary 
parochial  work  intelligently  and  economically. 
Only  under  despotisms  and  oligarchies  has 
the  radical  faith  in  '  universal  suffrage '  as 
a  political  panacea  arisen.  It  withers  the 
moment  it  is  exposed  to  practical  trial, 
because    democracy    cannot   rise   above   the 


Bernard  Shaiu  and  the  Siiperman     65 

level  of  the  human  material  of  which  its 
voters  are  made."  Democratic  republics  like 
Canada  and  the  United  States  are  neither 
"  healthy,  wealthy,  nor  wise,"  and  they  would 
be  worse  than  they  are  if  their  "  ministers 
were  not  experts  in  the  art  of  dodging  popular 
ignorance."  Great  movements  are  not  led ; 
there  is  no  one  to  lead  them ;  humanity  goes 
blundering  on  like  an  elephant  breaking 
through  the  jungle.  The  imperative  demand 
is  for  the  Superman  who  can  rise  above  the 
mediocracy  of  our  groping  humanity  and 
lead  us  to  something  better. 

There  has  been  no  social  progress  of  the 
race.  Mankind  is  incapable  of  making  any 
net  progress.  The  conceit  of  civilization 
sometimes  bUnds  man  to  the  illusion  that  he 
is  progressing,  but  "  compare  our  conduct  and 
our  codes  with  those  mentioned  in  such  an- 
cient scriptures  and  classics  as  have  come 
down  to  us,  and  you  will  find  no  jot  of  ground 
for  the  belief  that  any  moral  progress  what- 
ever has  been  made  in  historic  times,  in  spite 
of  all  the  romantic  attempts  of  historians  to 


66  Will  the  Home  Survive 

reconstruct  the  past  on  that  assumption." 
Away  then  with  •'  this  goose-cackle  about 
progress  !  Man,  as  he  is,  never  will  nor  can 
add  a  cubit  to  his  stature  by  any  of  its  quack- 
eries, political,  scientific,  educational,  religious, 
or  artistic." 

Our  hope  then  for  humanity  is  in  a  process 
of  evolution  whereby  man  in  his  weakness  will 
be  replaced  by  the  strength  and  wisdom  of  the 
Superman.  "  We  must  breed  political  capacity 
or  be  ruined  by  democracy."  We  must  cease 
being  cowards  and  resort  to  artificial  selection 
to  raise  a  class  of  men  capable  of  governing. 

There  are,  however,  two  fundamental  dif- 
ficulties which  Mr.  Shaw  finds  in  the  way  of 
this  scheme.  One  is  the  right  of  private  prop- 
erty, and  the  other  is  the  present  conception 
of  the  institution  of  marriage.  So  long  as 
there  is  property  there  will  be  social  cliques. 
So  long  as  natural  selection  is  limited  by  arti- 
ficial barriers  there  is  no  hope  of  breeding  the 
Superman,  Equality  is  essential  to  the  pro- 
duction of  such  a  race  of  beings.  So  long  as 
there  are  objections  to  a  countess  marrying  a 


Berjtard  Shaw  and  the  Superman     67 

navvy  or  a  duke  a  charwoman,  the  natural 
process  of  evolution  is  restricted.  Property 
causes  inequality  and  inequality  imposes  upon 
nature  an  artificial  barrier.  Marriage  also  de- 
lays the  advent  of  the  Superman.  The  best 
advantages  from  breeding  may  be  obtained 
from  persons  who  would  not  be  suitable  com- 
panions for  life.  "  Thus  the  son  of  a  robust, 
cheerful,  eupeptic  British  squire,  with  the 
tastes  and  range  of  his  class,  and  of  a  clever, 
imaginative,  intellectual,  highly  civilized  Jew- 
ess, might  be  superior  to  both  his  parents ; 
but  it  is  not  likely  that  the  Jewess  would  find 
the  squire  an  interesting  companion,  or  his 
habits,  his  friends,  his  place  and  mode  of  life 
congenial  to  her."  Therefore  to  obtain  the 
best  results  there  must  be  a  scheme  whereby 
these  persons  can  be  brought  together  for 
breeding,  but  not  for  mating  for  Ufe.  The 
present  institution  of  the  family  which  makes 
this  impossible  must  be  aboHshed  or  the  race 
can  never  hope  to  attain  to  anything  better. 

Bernard  Shaw  is  confident  that  this  institu- 
tion, while  it  lingers  in  name,  is  rapidly  pass- 


68  Will  the  Home  Survive 

ing.  The  name  may  linger,  but  the  custom 
itself  is  already  being  altered.  "  For  exam- 
ple, modern  English  marriage,  as  modified  by 
divorce,  and  the  Married  Woman's  Property 
Acts,  differs  more  from  early  nineteenth  cen- 
tury marriage  than  Byron's  marriage  did  from 
Shakespeare's.  At  the  present  moment,  mar- 
riage in  England  differs  not  only  from  mar- 
riage in  France,  but  from  marriage  in  Scot- 
land. Marriage  as  modified  by  the  divorce 
laws  in  South  Dakota  would  be  called  mere 
promiscuity  in  Clapham.  Yet  the  Americans, 
far  from  taking  a  profligate  and  cynical  view 
of  marriage,  do  homage  to  its  ideals  with  a 
seriousness  that  seems  old-fashioned  in  Clap- 
ham.  Neither  in  England  nor  America  would 
a  proposal  to  abolish  marriage  be  tolerated  for 
a  moment ;  and  yet  nothing  is  more  certain 
than  that  in  both  countries  the  progressive 
modification  of  the  marriage  contract  will  be 
continued  until  it  is  no  more  onerous  nor  ir- 
revocable than  any  ordinary  commercial  deed 
of  partnership.  Were  even  this  dispensed 
with,  people  would  still  call  themselves  hus- 


Bernard  Shaw  and  the  Superman     69 

bands  and  wives,  describe  their  companion- 
ships as  marriages,  and  be  for  the  most  part 
unconscious  that  tiiey  were  any  less  married 
than  Henry  the  Eighth." 

We  must  understand  what  Mr.  Shaw  means 
by  natural  selection  or  we  miss  altogether  his 
conception  of  the  family.  He  is  not  pleading 
for  scientific  marriage,  as  some  of  our  modern 
writers  have  done.  Indeed,  this  is  the  thing 
in  which  he  does  not  believe.  Why  should 
diseased  persons  be  forbidden  to  marry  ?  If 
they  marry  they  will  probably  have  a  large 
number  of  children  who  will  die  before  they 
reach  maturity.  Surely  this  is  better  "  than 
the  tragedy  of  a  union  between  a  healthy  and 
an  unhealthy  person," 

Shaw  believes  that  there  are  two  great  nat- 
ural forces  which  operate  in  our  civilization, 
one  the  desire  of  every  man  "  to  get  means  to 
keep  up  the  position  and  habits  of  a  gentle- 
man," and  the  other  the  desire  of  woman  for 
a  man  and  children.  The  latter  is  the  great 
force  in  our  humanity.  Man  is  helpless  before 
this  quest  of  woman.     The  Life  Force  finds  its 


yo  Will  the  Home  Survive 

expression  through  this  purpose  of  woman  and 
it  is  impossible  for  man  to  evade  it.  The 
drama  of  Man  and  the  Superman  is  the  work- 
ing out  of  this  principle.  Tanner  declared 
that  he  would  not  marry  Ann.  He  saw  in 
marriage  only  the  surrender  of  freedom, 
honor,  and  self.  When  he  found  that  Ann 
loved  him  he  ran  away ;  but  she  followed  him. 
Others  sued  for  her  hand,  but  she  turned  them 
aside,  and  driven  on  by  the  Life  Force  she 
sought  Tanner.  Passionately  he  declared  to 
her  again  and  again  that  he  would  never  marry 
her.  But  it  was  useless.  He  found  himself  in 
the  grip  of  the  Life  Force  which  had  laid  its 
trap  from  the  beginning  to  bring  them  to- 
gether, and  finally  he  submitted,  declaring  to 
Ann :  "  What  we  have  both  done  this  after- 
noon is  to  renounce  happiness,  renounce  tran- 
quillity, above  all,  renounce  the  romantic  pos- 
sibilities of  an  unknown  future,  for  the  cares 
of  a  household  and  a  family." 

Mr.  Shaw  believes  that  when  all  artificial 
barriers  like  property  and  the  present  restric- 
tions of  marriage  are  taken  away,  and  the  Life 


Bernard  Shaw  and  the  Supertnan     71 

Force  has  freedom  in  its  operations,  then  selec- 
tion will  be  natural  and  we  will  breed  a  better 
race  of  men. 

When  the  question  of  method  of  accom- 
plishing this  is  raised,  Mr,  Shaw  has  nothing 
to  offer.  He  sees  many  schemes  that  would 
be  better  than  our  present  plan.  "  Even  a 
joint  stock  human  stud  farm  (piously  disguised 
as  a  reformed  Foundling  Hospital,  or  some- 
thing of  that  sort)  might  well,  under  proper 
inspection  and  regulation,  produce  better  re- 
sults than  our  present  reliance  on  promiscuous 
marriage."  One  thing  is  clear,  that  if  a 
woman  can  by  selecting  the  right  husband 
and  properly  nourishing  herself,  "  produce  a 
citizen  with  efficient  senses,  sound  organs,  and 
a  good  digestion,"  she  should  be  given  a  re- 
ward for  such  a  service  to  the  nation.  Shaw 
has  nothing  further  than  this  to  offer.  He  can 
only  say  that  where  there  is  a  will  there  is  a 
way. 

But  this  is  a  part  of  Shawism.  To  enun- 
ciate a  principle  which  would  be  binding  upon 
men,    would    mean    the    renunciation    of   his 


'72  Will  the  Home  Survive 

philosophy,  which  is  embodied  in  the  saying, 
♦*  The  golden  rule  is  that  there  is  no  golden 
rule."  There  must  be  no  ideal,  because  every 
ideal  restricts  man  in  his  liberty  of  judging 
upon  each  particular  case.  Generalizations, 
liberal  or  conservative,  hold  the  mind  in  bond- 
age, therefore  all  generalizations  must  be 
abolished.  The  astonishing  thing  is  that 
Shaw  does  not  see  that  he  has  made  the  most 
startling  generalizations,  which  aim  at  nothing 
less  than  the  overthrow  of  our  entire  social 
structure.  The  very  thing  for  which  his  mind 
craves,  the  liberty  to  make  generalizations,  and 
the  satisfaction  he  gives  to  himself  in  making 
them,  he  denies  to  others. 

This  writer  is  too  inconsistent  to  be  taken 
seriously  and  too  sensational  to  be  interesting. 
We  have  long  ago  lost  our  interest  in  the 
millennium,  and  it  is  too  late  to  attempt  to 
awaken  our  interest  in  a  golden  age  of  Super- 
men. It  is  not  a  Superman  in  which  we  are 
interested,  but  in  the  common,  toiling,  imper- 
fect humanity  that  is  about  us.  Pious, 
saintly,  beer-drinking,  profane  humanity,  with 


Bernard  Shaiv  and  the  Superman     73 

bleared  eyes  and  with  bright  eyes,  some  of  it 
sane  and  the  rest  insane,  is  the  humanity  of 
which  we  are  a  part,  out  of  which,  webeheve, 
much  good  has  been  evolved,  and  out  of  which 
more    good   will   be   evolved   in   the   future. 
Nothing  less  than  blind  pessimism,  or  wilful 
silliness,   could   talk   of  the   "  goose-cackle " 
concerning    progress.      Progress    may    have 
been    slow  but   each   period  has    counted  a 
perceptible   advance   over  the   last,  and  our 
faith  in  humanity  will  compel  the  belief  that 
this  progress  will  continue.     We  may  in  the 
end  make  a  failure  ;  but  we  will  not  be  denied,  at 
any  rate,  the  privilege  of  trying  the  experiment. 
Shaw  leaves  another  stumbling-block  in  our 
way.     What  is  this  Superman  to  be?     Are 
we  assured  that  he  will  be  any  better  than  the 
man  of  to-day  ?     What  evidence  have  we  that 
the  offspring  of  a  countess  and  a  navvy,  or  a 
duke  and  a  charwoman,  would  be  a  Super- 
man ?     Shaw  does  not  undertake  to  say  what 
this    creature  would   be.     In  his  delirium  he 
plunges  into  a  darker  night  than  the  one  in 
which  he  is  already  walking,  and  he  has  the 


74  Will  the  Home  Survive 

audacity  to  ask  us  to  step  from  the  light  we 
already  have  and  plunge  into  the  darkness 
where  there  is  not  a  light  or  a  path.  Our 
present  arrangement  of  marriage  may  be  at- 
tended by  many  imperfections,  but  no  man  has 
yet  been  wise  enough  to  direct  us  to  anything 
better,  for  the  simple  reason  that  we  do  not 
know  for  what  elements  to  breed.  Humanity 
is  so  complex,  composed  as  it  is  of  so  many 
different  elements,  the  thing  which  is  an  ele- 
ment of  strength  in  one  man  being  a  weakness 
in  another  ;  genius  is  so  illusive,  that  no  man 
has  been  wise  enough  to  undertake  this  task  of 
producing  the  ideal  man.  Shaw  does  not  un- 
dertake it.  He  is  in  the  dark  as  much  as  any 
other  person.  Hence  even  to  venture  upon 
such  a  task  as  he  proposes,  the  abolition  of 
private  property  and  marriage,  without  vastly 
more  light  than  he  has  shed  upon  the  subject, 
would  be  the  height  of  imbecility. 

If  he  should  reply  that  the  Life  Force, 
whatever  that  may  be,  would  regulate  this  and 
finally  produce  the  Superman,  we  reply  that 
this  entire  doctrine  of  the  Life  Force,  driving 


Berjiard  Shazu  and  the  Superman     75 

woman  after  man  until  she  wins  him,  is  the 
greatest  folly  of  the  imagination  that  has  found 
its  way  into  print  in  recent  years.  It  is  con- 
trary to  our  natures  and  is  contradicted  by  our 
observation.  Indeed  Shaw  himself  denies  his 
doctrine.  "  Love,"  he  says, "  loses  its  charm 
when  it  is  not  free ;  and  whether  the  compul- 
sion is  that  of  custom  and  law,  or  of  infatua- 
tion, the  effect  is  the  same :  it  becomes  value- 
less. The  desire  to  give  inspires  no  affection 
unless  there  is  also  the  power  to  withhold ;  and 
the  successful  wooer,  in  both  sexes  alike,  is  the 
one  who  can  stand  out  for  honorable  condi- 
tions, and  failing  them,  go  without."  But 
there  is  no  freedom  in  the  way  in  which  Tan- 
ner is  compelled  to  marry  Ann.  He  is  pic- 
tured as  the  most  helpless  type  of  slave  to  a 
blind  and  merciless  law.  All  that  is  noble  in 
humanity  declares  against  it.  There  is  no  such 
slavery  of  the  affections  of  men. 

Shaw  has  simply  carried  the  principles  of 
Ibsen  to  their  logical  conclusion.  Ibsen  taught 
that  there  were  no  duties  to  God  or  to  our 
fellow  men ;  that  the  only  duty  was  to  self,  to 


76  Will  the  Home  Survive 

care  for  the  development  of  the  isolated  per- 
sonality. Shaw  is  logical  when  he  adds  to  his 
denial  of  duties  to  God  and  man,  the  denial  of 
all  duties  of  whatever  kind.  •'  Woman  has  to 
repudiate  duty  altogether.  In  that  repudiation 
lies  her  freedom ;  for  it  is  false  to  say  that 
woman  is  now  directly  the  slave  of  man ;  she 
is  the  immediate  slave  of  duty  ;  and  as  man's 
path  to  freedom  is  strewn  with  the  wreckage 
of  the  duties  and  ideals  he  has  trampled  on,  so 
must  hers  be."  She  must  repudiate  her  duty 
to  husband,  to  society,  to  children,  and  to  law, 
to  every  one  and  to  everything.  Only  in  this 
denial  of  all  duty  is  there  any  hope  for  the  up- 
lift of  the  world. 

Shaw  has  been  conceited  enough  to  declare 
humanity  fools,  following  an  illusion,  trying  to 
satisfy  itself  concerning  reality  with  finely 
drawn  ideals.  The  voice  of  humanity  has 
been  to  him  only  the  voice  of  insanity ;  the 
travail  of  the  ages  has  been  in  vain ;  evolution 
has  been  fruitless.  His  plunge  into  the  night 
is  logical.  Leave  him  there  to  wallow  in 
his  murky  pessimism. 


IV 

MAX  NORDAU  AND  NATURALISM 

Max  Nordau  finds  our  civilization  not  only 
out  of  joint  but  actually  filled  with  "  muddle- 
headed,"  idiotic  degenerates,  who  are  either 
insane  or  are  verging  upon  insanity,  and  he 
sets  before  himself  the  tremendous  task  of 
sounding  the  note  of  warning  and  suggesting 
means  of  escape  before  the  race  is  lost  in  mad- 
ness. As  we  read  his  Degeneration  we  are 
constantly  possessed  with  the  thought  that 
the  raving  lunatic  is  the  one  who  thinks  all 
others  insane  while  he  possesses  absolute  truth 
and  sanity.  If  egotism  and  impulsiveness  are 
characteristics  of  degeneracy,  as  Nordau  would 
have  us  believe,  then  he  must  be  placed  in  this 
class  of  unfortunates. 

His  Degeneration,  elephantine  in  style,  op- 
pressive in  spirit,  tedious  because  of  its  in- 
volved sentences  and  its  multiplication  of 
phrases,  carries  the  theory  of  Lombroso,  that 

77 


78  Will  the  Home  Sui'vive 

insanity  and  genius  are  closely  related  to  ex- 
treme issues  and  absurd  conclusions.  He  cai'e- 
fully  describes  the  characteristics  of  degen- 
erates and  then  finds  such  modern  writers  as 
Ibsen,  Walt  Whitman,  Maeterlinck,  Wagner, 
Tolstoy,  and  Zola  types  of  "  a  degenerative 
psychosis  of  the  epileptoid  order."  William 
Morris,  Swinburne,  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  are 
all  imbeciles,  babbling  and  stammering  out  of 
diseased  minds.  Society  dresses,  eats,  and 
plays  like  lunatics.  The  leaders  of  socialism 
are  "  weakly  neurasthenic  men,  muddle-headed 
people."  Great  schools  of  literature  like  the 
symbolists,  impressionists,  realists  are  degener- 
ates, trying  to  exist  on  the  public  by  writing 
"  crazy  and  inflated  phrases."  His  conclusions 
are  too  sweeping  to  be  taken  seriously,  his 
facts  treated  with  too  little  discrimination  to 
appeal  to  our  judgment,  and  his  spirit  so  cock- 
sure that  it  awakens  distrust. 

Nordau  has  a  preconceived  notion  of  hu- 
manity and  he  proposes  to  prove  his  theory, 
though  he  must  twist  the  universe  out  of  joint 
to    accomplish  his   purpose.      Every  literary 


Max  Nordau  and  Naturalism       79 

character  is  of  value  to  him  just  so  far  cis  he  is 
able  to  use  it  to  contribute  to  the  purpose  of 
his  book.  It  is  this  which  deprives  Nordau's 
criticism  of  great  value.  He  places  himself  in 
an  attitude  where  he  is  unable  to  understand 
the  thought  and  style  of  any  writer.  His  prej- 
udice warps  his  judgment.  His  determination 
to  prove  that  all  men  are  crazy  makes  him 
sometimes  ridiculous. 

He  sees  in  Maeterlinck  only  a  "  servile  im- 
itator of  crazy  Walt  Whitman,"  a  "pitiable 
mental  cripple,"  "  a  mentally  debilitated  pla- 
giarist," whose  fame  was  an  accident.  Maeter- 
linck unquestionably  has  great  defects.  He  is 
a  mystic  without  either  the  joy  or  the  faith  of 
the  Protestant  or  Catholic  mystics.  "  A  bend 
in  the  road  hides  from  view  "  those  great  real- 
ities which  rejoiced  the  souls  of  the  earlier 
mystics.  The  things  about  which  Tauler  and 
Ruysroek,  Teresa  and  Mme.  Guyon, spoke  with 
unquestioned  confidence,  are  to  Maeterlinck 
the  unknowables  in  an  unknowable  realm. 
Religion  was  the  atmosphere  in  which  the 
mystics  lived ;  to  him  religion  is  a  "  departing 


8o  Will  the  Ho7ne  Survive 

faith,"  affording  no  shelter,  and  he  abandons 
it  with  a  stoical  resignation  which  could  not 
have  been  surpassed  by  the  pagan  gladiator 
succumbing  to  his  victor.  Through  his  works 
run  a  sad  music,  a  melancholy  cry,  depressing 
as  the  moaning  of  the  winds  through  the  pine- 
trees  to  the  ears  of  the  disappointed  lover.  It 
is  the  melancholy  of  limitation,  the  lack  of 
spiritual  vision.  For  the  question,  Whence  ? 
he  has  no  answer.  Whither  ?  The  question 
is  lost  in  a  patient  silence.  The  present  alone 
concerns  him,  that  present  a  painfully  limited 
one.  In  it  there  are  no  singing  birds,  no  sweet- 
smelling  flowers,  no  voices  speaking  through 
the  night.  The  deep,  unfathomable  soul  of 
man  is  his  one  theme,  and  the  most  important 
things  about  that  are  the  awful,  unknown 
silences. 

The  most  pathetic  fact  concerning  Maeter- 
linck is  that  the  only  religion  he  knows  is  the 
mediaeval  Christianity  which  he  learned  at  the 
Jesuit  College,  and  which  was  interpreted  to 
him  by  the  church  of  his  boyhood.  Finding 
that  religion  crumbling  under  the  touch  of  the 


Max  Nordau  and  Naturalism       8i 

modern  critical  spirit,  he  proclaims  from  the 
housetops  that  all  religion  has  perished.  One 
has  only  to  turn  to  any  one  of  his  philosoph- 
ical writings  to  discover  that  religion  to  his 
mind  is  identical  with  mediaevalism.  In  one 
of  his  essays,  "  Of  Our  Anxious  Morality ^  he 
wrote  :  "  We  are  no  longer  chaste  since  we 
have  recognized  that  the  work  of  the  flesh, 
crushed  for  twenty  centuries,  is  natural  and 
lawful.  We  no  longer  go  out  in  search  of  res- 
ignation, of  mortification,  of  sacrifice ;  we  are 
no  longer  lowly  in  heart  or  poor  in  spirit." 
This  is  the  voice  of  one  who  has  escaped  from 
monasticism.  His  most  Christian  criticism  of 
sacrifice  in  Wisdom  and  Destiny  is  not  of  that 
noble  kind  of  sacrifice  where  man  gives  un- 
sparingly of  his  love,  joy,  hope,  and  courage, 
but  of  that  other  type  of  "  grand  and  gloomy 
meditation  wherein  sorrow,  love,  and  despair 
blend  with  death  and  destiny  and  the  apathetic 
forces  of  nature."  The  mere  statement  of 
these  principles  shows  that  Maeterlinck  has  in 
mind  only  the  religion  of  the  monastery. 
It  is  the  religion  of  the  monk  and  the  priest 


82  Will  the  Home  Survive 

that  is  dead.  Maeterlinck  says  of  this  priest : 
"  He  is  getting  too  old.  It  looks  as  though  he 
himself  has  no  longer  seen  for  some  time.  He 
will  not  admit  it,  for  fear  another  should  come 
to  take  his  place  among  us ;  but  I  suspect  he 
hardly  sees  at  all  any  more.  We  must  have 
another  guide."  But,  again,  this  priest  of  the 
drama,  The  Blind,  is  of  the  mediaeval  religion. 
It  is  the  priest  religion.  Maeterlinck,  having 
never  discovered  the  grand  and  free  sj^irit  of 
modern  liberal  Protestantism,  is  led  into  the 
bewildering  forest  on  the  lonely  island  of  the 
bhnd,  on  which  forever  breaks  the  moaning 
waves  from  the  silent  sea.  A  religion  without 
a  priest,  a  Christian  ethics  without  a  monas- 
tery, a  gospel  without  a  crucifix,  are  concep- 
tions which  have  never  stirred  his  imagination. 
He  is  like  a  sailor  whose  ship  has  broken  loose 
from  the  anchor,  and  who  never  inquires  if 
there  is  another  anchor  that  can  be  cast 
over  to  hold  the  ship  in  the  storm,  but  who 
permits  his  vessel  to  drift  before  merciless 
waves  into  an  unknown  sea. 

Finding  that  religion  no  longer  has  answers 


Max  Nordau  and  Naturalism       83 

to  the  great  questions  of  mankind,  Maeterlinck 
starts  in  quest  of  light.  The  priest  has 
failed.  The  dumb  animal  instincts  cannot  lead 
us.  The  flashes  of  the  poet's  genius  bring 
some  light,  but  they  cannot  be  relied  upon  to 
guide  us  from  the  forest.  Upon  reason  we 
cannot  depend.  "  The  most  living  reason  be- 
finds  itself  not  in  reason."  It  springs  from  the 
silent,  unknown  depths  of  the  soul. 

Depending  upon  these  silent  voices  for 
guidance,  Maeterhnck  starts  on  his  search  for 
truth,  and  the  rapidity  of  his  ever-shifting  posi- 
tion is  no  less  interesting  than  his  mystical 
theory  of  the  origin  of  wisdom.  All  his 
earlier  dramas  are  wrapped  in  a  fatalistic 
gloom.  Destiny  seems  "  some  monstrous,  ex- 
ternal, irresistible  force,  which  compels  and  en- 
slaves human  beings  from  the  outside."  In 
the  second  period  of  his  development  he 
passed  from  the  conception  of  destiny  as  some- 
thing external,  to  the  conception  of  it  as  per- 
sonal. "  Destiny  is  character."  Human  per- 
sonality alone  has  power  over  outward  forces 
and  determines  destiny.     What  is  character  ? 


84  Will  the  Home  Survive 

It  is  "  the  total  weight  and  range  of  all  the 
forces  within  us.  Some  of  these  are  the  prod- 
ucts of  heredity,  others  of  environment,  and, 
above  all  else,  of  the  subconscious  self,  moving 
us  to  unconscious  action."  In  his  last  volume 
of  essays  he  makes  still  another  change,  becom- 
ing an  advocate  of  Comte's  Positive  Philosophy, 
a  believer  in  the  religion  of  humanity.  Where 
he  will  stop  in  the  evolution  of  his  thought  no 
man  would  dare  predict.  Having  denied  the 
value  of  history  as  a  guide,  and  finding  reason 
too  hedged  about  to  solve  our  questions,  he 
plunges  into  the  unknown  future  by  the  light 
of  the  subconscious  self. 

Maeterlinck's  interpretation  of  life  is  too  thin 
and  airy  to  find  wide  acceptance  in  this  beef- 
eating  world.  He"  declares  that  "  misery  is  the 
disease  of  mankind,"  and  he  goes  in  search  of 
the  source  of  happiness,  finding  it  in  con- 
sciousness, "  our  refuge  from  the  caprice  of 
fate,  our  centre  of  happiness  and  strength," 
consciousness  including  the  vast,  mysterious 
self,  as  well  as  our  conscious  qualities  and 
defects.     Unknowingly,  Maeterlinck  has  fallen 


Max  Nordau  and  Naturalism       85 

into  the  very  pit  he  has  tried  to  escape, — that 
of  mediaevaHsm.  The  happiness  the  old 
monks  soughts  in  vigils  and  in  prayer,  the 
happiness  of  resignation,  quietude,  the  negation 
of  unrest,  is  the  very  happiness  which  Maeter- 
linck seeks  in  the  secret  cell  of  his  soul.  It  is 
too  otherworldly,  too  much  divorced  from  the 
things  in  which  we  are  compelled  to  dwell,  to 
appeal  to  toiling  mankind. 

What  is  the  source  of  morality  ?  Not  re- 
ligion, as  it  can  no  longer  explain  anything. 
Not  common  sense,  as  that  is  only  another 
term  for  gross  egotism.  Even  good  sense, 
while  a  little  less  material,  a  little  less  animal, 
cannot  be  the  source  of  our  ethical  system. 
This  source  can  be  none  other  than  the  mystic 
reason,  that  unknown  depth  of  the  soul  from 
which  our  true  ideals  spring. 

Is  man  immortal?  Religion  is  silent,  and 
reason  declares  that  the  hope  of  the  survival 
of  conscious  personality  is  an  illusion. 
"  There  can  be  no  survival  of  our  present  con- 
sciousness. We  cannot  tell  what  our  Hfe  was 
before  birth,  though  we  cannot  doubt  it  ex- 


86  Will  the  Home  Survive 

isted.  Neither  need  we  doubt  its  immortality. 
But  the  form  of  the  consciousness  is  beyond 
our  knowledge  or  imagination."  Here  he 
passes  into  Oriental  mysticism  and  bids  us 
wait  patiently  and  watch  the  mystic  conscious- 
ness for  glimmers  of  light. 

There  is  nothing  in  this  philosophy  to  warm 
the  heart  or  to  satisfy  the  reason.  A  man  to 
whom  the  great  voice  of  history  has  no  value, 
and  to  whom  reason  is  only  a  ripple  upon  the 
deep,  unfathomable  sea  of  conciousness,  can- 
not be  depended  upon  as  a  teacher.  Some 
one  has  said  that  all  his  teaching  might  be  sum- 
marized in  Emerson's  words :  "  We  live  in 
the  lap  of  an  immense  intelligence,  which 
makes  us  organs  of  its  activity  and  receivers 
of  its  truth."  But  here  is  just  where  Maeter- 
linck differs  from  Emerson.  To  the  Belgian, 
we  rest  in  the  lap  of  an  immense  silence 
rather  than  an  immense  intelligence.  Emer- 
son was  an  idealist ;  Maeterlinck  tries  to  be, 
but  his  idealism  is  chilled  by  his  agnosti- 
cism. His  silence  becomes  oppressive,  like  the 
silence  in  the  house  of  the  dead. 


Max  Nordau  and  Naturalis7n        87 

These  fundamental  defects  in  the  thought  of 
Maeterhnck  ought  not,  however,  bUnd  us  to 
his  strength  and  virtue.  His  great  genius 
carries  us  through  his  books,  in  spite  of  his 
fundamental  defects.  His  sublime  indifference 
to  fame  and  wealth,  and  his  persistent  insist- 
ence that  the  true  life  is  found  only  in  the 
inner  life,  is  wholesome  teaching  for  our  auto- 
mobile age.  His  ethical  insight  sometimes 
lends  eloquence  to  his  lips,  and  he  carries  us 
to  the  Mount  of  Vision.  None  of  his  con- 
temporaries have  exceeded  him  in  wealth  of 
language  or  beauty  of  expression.  His  style 
is  rich  enough  to  atone  for  his  philosophical 
defects,  and  any  man  who  indulges  in  such 
wholesale  condemnation,  oblivious  of  Maeter- 
linck's power,  as  Nordau  has  done,  may  be 
stamped  at  once  as  a  critic  so  swayed  by  prej- 
udice that  he  is  unable  to  form  an  impartial  or 
just  estimate  of  any  writer. 

There  are  times  when  Nordau  does  not  even 
impress  us  as  being  sincere.  He  regards  the 
symbolists  of  France  as  a  school  which  exists 
for  the  "  aim  of  making  a  noise  in  the  world, 


88  IVill  the  Home  Survive 

and  by  attracting  the  attention  of  men  through 
its  extravagances,  of  attaining  celebrity  and 
profit,  and  the  gratification  of  all  the  desires 
and  conceits  agitating  the  envious  souls  of 
these  filibusters  of  fame."  They  are  only 
"  esthetic  loafers  "  who  want  to  work  as  little 
as  possible  and  fare  as  well  as  possible.  George 
Brandes  is  only  a  "  sponger  on  the  name  and 
fame  of  others,"  who  plays  and  dances  before 
every  poet  and  author  and  then,  "  after  the 
hubbub,  passes  his  hat  round  among  the  deaf- 
ened public."  We  must  either  confess  that 
the  man  who  makes  such  assertions  is  either 
trying  to  do  the  very  thing  of  which  he  ac- 
cuses these  writers,  to  stir  up  such  a  hubbub 
that  everybody  will  talk  of  his  book  and  buy 
it ;  that  he  is  a  fool,  or  is  morally  and  intel- 
lectually dishonest.  In  either  case,  he  fails  to 
win  our  confidence.  Like  an  auctioneer  he  is 
shrieking  at  the  top  of  his  voice  to  attract  at- 
tention and  is  shrieking  in  language  that  leads 
us  to  distrust  the  commodity  he  has  to  offer. 

Nordau's    conception    of  life   is  so  limited 
that  he  is  incapable  of  dealing  with  men  who 


Max  Nordau  and  Naturalism       89 

do  not  think  as  he  does.  He  is  incapable  of 
understanding  the  great  truth  there  is  in 
mysticism,  hence  Rossetti  to  him  must  "  be 
counted  among  Sollier's  imbeciles,"  and  Swin- 
burne is  a  "  higher  degenerate."  Having  no 
conception  of  the  invaluable  contribution 
which  Ruskin  made  to  English  life,  to  Nordau 
this  great  critic  "  is  one  of  the  most  turbid  and 
fallacious  minds "  who  combines  the  most 
widely  eccentric  thoughts  with  the  "  acerbity 
of  a  bigot."  Nordau  sees  life  from  only  one 
standpoint,  judges  everything  by  one  standard, 
and  calls  every  man  illogical  or  crazy  who 
does  not  see  things  as  he  does.  He  is  the 
slave  of  naturalism,  of  that  type  of  natural- 
ism which  is  materialistic.  In  Paradoxes, 
a  volume  of  essays  where  he  has  done 
some  of  his  best  work,  he  finds  the  origin 
of  knowledge,  art,  and  morality  in  the  princi- 
ples of  naturalistic  evolution.  His  Degeiiera- 
tion  is  based  upon  a  materialistic  conception 
of  physiological  psychology  which  would  find 
few  adherents  at  the  present  time.  There  is 
no   place    in    his   scheme    of   things    for   the 


90  Will  the  Home  Survive 

sciences  which  exist  outside  of  the  physical 
laboratory.  Theology  may  tell  of  "  harp- 
concerts  in  paradise,"  and  talk  of  "  the  trans- 
formation of  stupid  youths  and  hysterical 
geese  into  white-clad  angels  with  rainbow- 
colored  wings,"  but  it  is  only  "  the  cradle  croon 
of  the  old  wife's  tale."  Metaphysics  may  de- 
vise some  fable  and  propound  it  with  over- 
whelming earnestness  but  it  will  never  occur 
to  serious  minds  to  turn  to  metaphysics  for 
truth.  The  vicious  attack  he  makes  upon 
French  symbolists  is  vitiated  by  his  inabiUty 
to  appreciate  the  type  of  mind  which  protests 
against  the  science  which  constitutes  itself  a 
self-appointed  pope  to  rule  over  men  and  place 
upon  the  Index  Expurgatorius  all  things  with 
which  it  is  not  pleased.  Mankind  is  learning 
that  there  is  a  realm  where  the  microscope  and 
the  dissecting-knife  are  useless,  a  spiritual 
realm  where  the  real  man  dwells,  from  whence 
comes  his  light,  his  comfort,  his  hope,  and  his 
protest  is  becoming  ever  louder  against  any 
science  which  shuts  him  up  to  nerve-knots  and 
brain    matter.     Nordau's    inability   to    under- 


Max  Nordau  and  Naturalism       91 

stand  this  protest  of  humanity  makes  him  rage 
against  the  symbohsts  as  though  he  would 
burn  them  alive  for  their  audacity,  but  the 
very  spirit  against  which  he  protests  is  the 
measure  of  his  weakness. 

When  reading  Nordau's  Natural  History  of 
Love,  one  feels  as  though  he  were  walking 
through  physical  laboratories  with  carcasses 
lying  all  about,  already  cut  and  lifeless,  with 
nothing  even  to  suggest  that  they  were  ever 
human.  Here  Nordau's  naturalism  is  bold 
and  repulsive,  squeezing  the  life  out  of  hu- 
manity, leaving  the  poet  without  a  song  or 
the  lover  without  a  romance.  The  root  of  the 
whole  matter  is  physical,  sex-centres  in  brain 
and  spinal  chord,  out  of  which  grow  impulses 
to  love.  "  All  that  is  now  necessary  for  this 
impulse  and  this  craving  to  find  an  object  and 
become  transformed  into  actual  love,  is  for 
this  individual  in  this  frame  of  mind,  to  meet 
another  of  the  opposite  sex  in  the  same  con- 
dition." Nordau  makes  us  feel  as  though  we 
were  brutes,  or  at  least  savages,  only  needing 
to  listen  to  the  demands  of  the  physical  life, 


92  Will  the  Home  Survive 

when  all  the  demands  of  love  would  be  sat- 
isfied. 

Civilization,  rather  than  a  help  to  pure,  true 
love,  is  a  real  hindrance,  he  declares.  Our 
minds  are  poisoned  by  fiction  and  the  drama. 
Our  young  girls  are  ruined  by  novel  reading 
and  the  theatres.  "  She  substitutes  her  fancies 
for  the  real  needs  of  her  organism,  and  heed- 
lessly commits  those  fatal  errors  in  her  choice 
which  wreck  her  life  forever  afterwards." 
Ninety  cases  of  marriage  out  of  a  hundred  in 
our  cities  are  not  produced  by  true  love  evolved 
out  of  the  physical  organism,  but  out  of  the 
fancies,  imaginations,  suggested  by  fiction. 
Our  wives  do  not  marry  us  because  their  na- 
tures draw  us  to  them,  but  because  their  minds 
have  been  poisoned  and  they  are  trying  to  re- 
enact  the  role  of  some  drama  they  have  heard 
or  read.  They  are  insane,  demented  by  love- 
literature.  Nature  has  no  voice ;  or  a  voice 
that  is  not  heard. 

This  is  naturalism  gone  mad,  which  exalts 
the  beast  above  the  man,  the  physical  instincts 
above  all  we  have  considered  best  in  our  civ"« 


Max  Nordau  and  Naturalism       93 

ilization.  It  is  the  absurd  position  in  which 
all  must  find  themselves  who  seek  the  best  so- 
lution of  the  family  life  under  the  microscope, 
rather  than  in  the  spiritual  atmosphere  of  the 
consecrated  home,  where  intelligence,  expe- 
rience, and  imagination  unite  to  lead  and  check 
the  physical  hfe. 

Nordau  finds  two  causes  for  the  existence 
of  the  family,  one  physical  and  the  other 
social.  Man  is  drawn  to  woman  from  physio- 
logical reasons.  He  loves  her  when  he  de- 
sires her ;  he  is  indifferent  to  her  when  the 
desire  is  satisfied.  Hence  from  purely  physio- 
logical causes  he  would  never  have  invented 
this  institution  of  the  family,  the  permanent 
alliance  with  woman.  This  permanent  alliance 
arose  out  of  a  social  necessity,  the  advantages 
of  a  well-ordered  household,  consideration  of 
duties  towards  children  and  the  state.  The 
institution  as  a  permanent  social  factor  does 
not  exist  primarily  for  the  man.  It  would  suit 
his  nature  better  not  to  have  it,  for  he  is  not 
so  far  removed  from  polygamy  in  the  evolu- 
tionary process  as  is  woman.     The  institution 


94  Will  the  Home  Survive 

exists  primarily  for  the  protection  of  the 
woman  and  her  children.  The  abandonment 
of  the  institution  and  the  return  to  primitive 
promiscuity  might  be  well  enough  for  rich 
women,  but  the  vast  majority  of  wives  would 
suffer  in  the  event  of  such  a  change.  We 
must  maintain  the  institution  of  the  family  for 
the  protection  of  the  weaker  part  of  the  hu- 
man race. 

There  are,  however,  many  things  which 
must  modify  and  give  flexibility  to  the  institu- 
tion. "  A  serious  and  healthy  reformer  will 
contend  for  the  principle  that  marriage  should 
acquire  a  moral  and  emotional  import,  and 
not  remain  a  lying  form.  He  will  condemn 
the  marriage  for  interest,  for  dowry,  or  business 
marriage ;  he  will  brand  as  a  crime  the  action 
of  married  couples  who  feel  for  some  other 
human  being  a  strong,  true  love,  tested  by 
time  and  struggle,  and  yet  remain  together  in 
a  cowardly  pseudo-union,  deceiving  and  con- 
taminating each  other,  instead  of  honorably 
separating  and  contracting  genuine  connec- 
tions elsewhere ;  he  will  demand  that  marriage 


Max  Nordau  and  Naturalism       95 

be  based  on  reciprocal  inclination,  maintained 
by  confidence,  gratitude,  and  respect,  but  he 
will  guard  himself  from  saying  anything  against 
marriage  itself,  this  bulwark  of  relations  be- 
tween the  sexes,  afforded  by  definite,  perma- 
nent duty." 

Nordau  has  made  a  real  contribution  to  the 
cause  of  the  family  in  his  Morganatic,  where 
he  protests  against  the  injustice  of  the  mor- 
ganatic marriage  of  European  royalty.  He 
pictures  the  misery  and  suffering  caused  by 
such  an  unnatural  relation  between  man  and 
woman.  A  prince,  through  his  sin,  is  com- 
pelled to  marry  a  young  and  beautiful  Venetian 
singer.  Enough  is  done  by  the  prince's  fam- 
ily to  hush  the  disgrace.  The  child  is  given 
the  title  of  Baron,  but  is  denied  those  things 
which  are  more  important  than  titles,  namely, 
a  father's  love  and  care,  social  recognition  and 
advancement.  As  soon  as  he  is  old  enough 
to  understand,  he  is  enraged  by  these  unnat- 
ural relations.  He  says :  "  I  am  a  son  of  a 
prince  ;  but  if  I  give  myself  out  for  what  I  am, 
I  am  scorned  or  persecuted,  or  both.     Why  ? 


96  JVill  the  Home  Survive 

It  is  true  !  By  all  divine  and  human  laws,  I 
am  Prince  Albrecht's  son,  and  my  nearest 
relatives,  my  uncles  and  cousins,  are  the  great- 
est emperors  and  kings  of  the  earth.  And  I 
am  asked  not  to  regard  my  father's  brothers  as 
uncles,  or  the  children  of  my  father's  brothers 
and  sisters  as  cousins.  It  is  an  atrocious  out- 
rage. If  it  was  a  crime,  my  father  ought  to 
have  been  punished  for  it,  not  me.  I  am  not 
guilty."  But  as  a  result  of  the  artificial  laws 
and  customs  of  European  society  he  is  the  one 
who  had  to  bear  the  punishment.  He  is  de- 
nied by  his  father's  family,  cheated  of  his 
childhood  and  youth,  sacrificed  by  a  loveless 
father,  left  without  means,  position,  profession, 
or  an  outlook  in  life.  He  sues  for  a  title 
which  is  his  by  right,  for  the  blood  of  a  prince 
is  in  his  veins,  but  he  fails  to  secure  it.  Wast- 
ing his  fortune  in  a  vain  effort  to  obtain  rec- 
ognition, he  at  last  becomes  a  wanderer  over 
the  earth,  ending  by  taking  the  vows  of  a 
monk  in  a  monaster}'. 

The  argument  of  the  story  is  made  more 
forcible  by  the  introduction  of  another  prince, 


Max  Nordait  and  Naturalism       97 

the  father  of  a  beautiful  girl  whom  he  refused 
to  recognize.  The  girl  grows  to  womanhood, 
having  a  voice  which  commands  the  attention 
of  the  musical  world.  When  she  reaches  a 
position  of  influence,  she  openly  calls  the 
prince,  papa,  and  compels  him  to  marry  her 
mother.  The  prince  at  first  rebels,  but  at  last 
recognizes  the  justice  of  the  claim.  He  mar- 
ries the  woman  who  was  by  nature  his  wife, 
and  the  marriage  results  happily  for  all  con- 
cerned. 

The  book  is  a  wholesome  protest  against  a 
society  bound  by  customs  which  are  purely 
artificial ;  often  as  unholy  as  they  are  unnat- 
ural, denying  the  justice  of  nature's  ways. 
Siegfried  complains  :  "  I  am  a  living  man  of 
flesh  and  blood,  and  you  wish  to  slay  me  by 
an  icy  theory."  It  is  for  the  "  living  man  "  as 
opposed  to  the  "  icy  theory "  that  Nordau 
pleads ;  for  the  recognition  of  truth  rather 
than  tradition,  nature  rather  than  customs. 

But  the  real  key  to  the  understanding  of 
Nordau's  conception  of  marriage  is  in  this  sen- 
tence :  "  He  will  brand  as  a  crime  the  action 


98  Will  the  Home  Survive 

of  married  couples  who  feel  for  some  other 
human  being  a  strong,  true  love,  tested  by 
time  and  struggle,  and  yet  remain  together  in 
cowardly  pseudo-union,  deceiving  and  con- 
taminating each  other,  instead  of  honorably 
separating  and  contracting  genuine  connections 
elsewhere."  His  entire  conception  is  reduced 
to  this :  the  family  is  based  upon  the  physical 
instincts  of  sexual  passion;  this  passion  is 
love ;  whenever  it  becomes  stronger  for  one 
creature  than  another,  the  latter  should  be  de- 
serted for  the  former. 

This  is  the  underlying  thought  of  the  play,  the 
Right  to  Love.  The  absolute  right  to  love,  love 
being  only  passion  divorced  from  reason,  to 
love  irrespective  of  duties,  is  the  plea  of  Bertha, 
the  chief  character  of  the  play.  Married  to  a 
man  for  whom  she  bears  children,  who  gives 
her  a  good  home  and  every  comfort,  she  finds 
the  anniversary  of  her  wedding-day  becoming 
"  an  old  story,"  tedious  and  without  any  pleas- 
ant memory,  the  chief  reason  being  that  she 
has  fallen  in  love  with  another  man.  She  be- 
comes  an   advocate   of  a  philosophy   whose 


Max  Nordau  and  Naturalism       99 

main  principle  is  "  the  right  to  love."  Every 
human  being  has  "  the  right  of  satisfying  the 
heart,"  hence  "  when  people  love  each  other 
they  have  the  right  to  belong  to  one  another." 
The  solemn  covenant  of  marriage  into  which 
a  young  but  ignorant  girl  enters,  amid  the  en- 
chanting scenes  of  the  marriage  festival  "  can- 
not be  binding  for  the  whole  life."  The  hu- 
man being  ought  and  must  have  the  liberty  to 
obey  the  voice  of  the  heart.  The  Ten  Com 
mandments  are  not  "  up-to-date ;  "  the  duties 
of  home  and  children  are  nothing  before  the 
blind  passion  of  love,  the  one  powerful  law  of 
nature  which  must  be  obeyed  ;  society  is  '*  the 
thousand-eyed,  thousand-tongued,  thousand- 
fisted  monster "  which  must  be  defied  and 
fought.  All  must  give  way  to  "  pleasurable 
emotion,"  which  is  the  end  of  life. 

A  bolder  statement  of  the  philosophy  of 
selfishness  could  not  be  given  by  Neitzsche 
himself.  Bertha  and  her  lover  both  teach  that 
selfishness  is  not  wrong.  She  passionately 
declares  :  "  What  do  I  care  about  the  world  ! 
I  don't  have  to  provide  for  the  world,  but  for 


I(X)  Will  the  Home  Survive 

myself."  There  are  no  such  things  as  duties 
to  society.  The  individual  alone  is  to  be  con- 
sidered, and  if  the  individual  defies  the  estab- 
lished law  and  customs  of  society,  it  is  no 
crime  but  a  human  right.  "  No  human  being 
is  the  property  of  another,"  and  no  one  is  to 
be  considered  except  the  individual,  in  his 
search  for  happiness.  Thus  in  this  drama 
Nordau  has  done  the  very  thing  for  which  he 
so  strongly  condemned  Ibsen,  only  he  has 
done  it  in  another  way.  Ibsen  declares  against 
the  institution  itself  when  it  stands  in  the  way 
of  the  individual,  Nordau  pretends  to  stand 
for  the  permanence  of  the  institution  as  a  social 
necessity,  but  he  actually  contends  for  a  prin- 
ciple which  is  just  as  destructive  of  the  family 
life  as  the  principle  for  which  Ibsen  contended. 
His  fundamental  defect  is  in  that  delusion 
which  has  taken  possession  of  so  many 
present-day  makers  of  fiction.  Priding  them- 
selves upon  their  naturalism,  which  they  think 
can  alone  give  the  truth,  they  are  "  really 
wallowing  in  what  is  left  of  human  nature 
after  the  sense  of  right  and  wrong  have  been 


•  >  I 


1      ,    .      1    »     ,    , 

>  »       >       >     >         • 


Max  Nordau  mid  Naturalism     lOl 

eliminated,"  The  host  of  writers  who,  like 
Nordau,  plead  for  "  the  right  to  love,"  are 
pleading  not  for  the  natural  but  for  the  bestial. 
Self-control,  the  idealizing  powers  of  the  mind, 
sweet  reasonableness,  and  reverence,  are  hid- 
den under  the  rush  of  passion.  We  are  put 
into  the  sink  of  the  smelling  laboratory  and 
asked  to  believe  that  this  is  truth.  The  type 
of  naturalism  which  includes  all  of  man,  and 
which  brings  the  lower  elements  of  his  nature 
into  subjection  to  his  higher,  is  absent  from 
this  literature,  singing  songs  of  liberty  for  the 
brute. 


t    • 


>        •    >  > 


V 

TOLSTOY'S  CONCEPTION  OF  MARRIAGE 

To  many  serious  but  sentimentally  pietistic 
people  we  are  living  in  the  most  insincere  and 
irreligious  age  in  the  history  of  the  world. 
They  point  us,  on  the  one  hand,  to  the  common 
multitude,  brutalized  by  a  coarse  self-indul- 
gence, repulsive  as  they  come  from  their 
nightly  revels,  covered  with  the  fumes  of  bad 
whiskey  and  worse  tobacco,  their  faces  all  red- 
dened by  their  dissipations,  and  on  the  other  to 
the  frivolous,  godless  rich.  Let  us  not  deny 
that  both  these  classes  number  like  the  sands 
of  the  sea.  They  have  been  found,  however, 
in  every  age,  have  been  the  brains  of  no  age, 
and  have  existed  both  to  disgust  by  their  con- 
duct, and  to  pay  by  their  money  the  accounts 
of  those  who  do  think  and  who  have  con- 
stituted the  real  life  of  every  period. 

Considering  this  latter  class,  our  age  will  be 
known  in  history  as  an  age  of  sincerity.     In 

I02 


Tolstoy's  Conception  of  Marriage     103 

literature  the  dawn  came  with  Ruskin,  Carlyle, 
Emerson,  and  the  great  poets  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  In  theology  the  dawn  came  with  the 
critical  study  of  the  old  theological  systems 
and  of  the  Scriptures.  Ibsen,  Maeterlinck, 
H.  G.  Wells,  and  a  host  of  others  who  have 
had  the  verbal  missiles  of  orthodoxy  hurled  at 
them,  can  only  be  understood  when  we  see 
them  as  intensely  sincere  men,  who  are  con- 
scious of  Hving  in  a  social  world  where  there 
are  many  shams,  and  who,  depressed  by  these 
shams,  have  gone  in  eager  search  for  reality. 
The  critical  spirit  of  the  age  is  the  breath  of 
sincerity.  The  unsparing  criticism  of  religion, 
society,  the  family,  and  the  moral  order,  have 
been  born  of  an  unquenchable  thirst  to  know 
the  truth,  to  escape  the  bondage  of  custom,  the 
spiritual  death  of  formal  religion,  and  the 
misery-breeding  defects  of  family  life. 

A  perfect  embodiment  of  this  spirit  of  sin- 
cerity is  found  in  Tolstoy.  He  has  been  called 
the  greatest  Christian  of  the  age.  This  may 
be  doubted.  Whether  he  is  a  Christian,  mean- 
ing by  Christian  one  who  correctly  interprets 


I04  Will  the  Ho7ne  Su7'vive 

the  moral  laws  of  Jesus  and  lives  according  to 
them,  may  be  seriously  questioned.  Cer- 
tainly his  interpretation  of  the  gospels  can- 
not endure  by  any  known  standard  of  criti- 
cism, while  the  emphasis  he  puts  on  one  ele- 
ment of  Christ's  teaching  to  the  exclusion  of 
all  others,  equally  important,  leaves  him  open  to 
the  serious  charge  of  being  at  least  imperfectly 
Christian  in  his  ideals.  He  has  also  been 
caught  by  the  delusion  of  the  simple  life,  from 
the  destructive  influence  of  which  he  has  been 
saved  by  a  wife  who  gives  her  life  to  the  mend- 
ing of  his  stockings  and  the  paying  of  his  bills. 
The  real  Tolstoy  has  often  been  hidden  under 
these  oddities,  which  will  be  forgotten  after  the 
passing  of  the  great  prophet.  He  will  be  re- 
membered as  the  supreme  embodiment  of  the 
spirit  of  protest  against  solemn  shams  in  state, 
in  religion,  in  society,  and  the  embodiment  of 
the  sincere  mind  seeking  for  reality  in  the  face 
of  organized  "  orthodoxy." 

While  Tolstoy's  protests  against  the  shams 
of  state  and  society  have  been  vital  and  far- 
reaching  in  their  influence,  the  work   of  his 


Tolstoy's  Conception  of  Marriage     105 

which  will  endure  is  his  protest  against  the 
great   heresy    of    the   orthodox   churches    of 
Christendom,  the  heresy  which  teaches  the  im- 
practicability, as  well  as  the  impossibility,  of 
living    according  to  the  moral  teachings   of 
Jesus.     Greeks,  Romans,  and  Protestants  have 
exalted  things  which  were  veiled  in  mystery, 
have  imprisoned  and  burned  men  for  denying 
things  about  which  no  man  can  be  certain,  while 
the  teaching  of  Jesus,  which  all  can  under- 
stand. His  simplest  laws  of  conduct,  have  been 
declared    impracticable.      So-called   believers 
"  go  through  the  most  elaborate  ceremonies  for 
the  consummation  of  the  sacraments,  the  build- 
ing of  churches,  the  sending  out  of  missiona- 
ries, the  establishment  of  the  priesthood,  for  pa- 
rochial administration,  for  the  performance  of 
rituals  ;  but  they  forget  one  little  detail — to  do 
what  He  said."     In  this  sarcastic  touch  Tol- 
stoy puts  his  finger  upon  what  he  regards  as 
the  great   defect   of  Christendom,  the  defect 
which    makes    Christendom    unchristian,   the 
denial  of  the  very  thing  Jesus  proposed  to  ac- 
complish, to  have  men  live  as  He  lived. 


io6  Will  the  Home  Survive 

The  churches  of  Christendom  have  taught 
that  the  chief  work  of  Christ  was  to  atone  by 
His  death  for  the  sin  of  Adam,  •'  but  every 
one  who  has  read  the  gospels  knows  that 
Christ  taught  nothing  of  the  sort,  or  at  least 
spoke  very  vaguely  on  these  topics."  The 
chief  aim  of  Christ's  words  was  to  regulate 
men's  lives ;  how  they  ought  to  live  in  their 
relations  to  one  another.  The  cloudy  and 
vague  philosophy,  the  religion  of  creed  and 
form  and  priesthood,  the  ecclesiastical  institu- 
tion which  gives  its  approval  to  murderous 
war,  and  regards  oppression  and  poverty  as  in- 
evitable, are  parts  of  a  religion  as  foreign  to 
the  teachings  of  Jesus  as  the  teachings  of 
Gautama  are  to  those  of  the  Nazarene.  If 
man  could  absolutely  detach  himself  from  all 
of  this  religion  of  the  church,  the  religion  of 
traditional  theology,  and  then,  without  prej- 
udice of  education,  give  his  opinion  of  it,  "  it 
would  seem  absolute  insanity,"  without  founda- 
tion in  the  gospels.  The  declaration  that  the 
most  important  part  of  Christianity  is  that 
portion  of  it  which  cannot  be  understood,  and 


Tolstoy's  Conception  of  Marriage     107 

is  therefore  useless,  while  the  part  that  can  be 
understood  is  impracticable,  and  therefore  need 
not  seriously  be  considered,  is  the  most  insane 
contradiction  that  mankind  has  ever  been 
asked  to  believe.  We  can  only  believe  that 
such  a  perversion  of  truth  was  born  of  "  those 
whose  deeds  were  evil,"  and  hence  those  who 
"  have  lost  confidence  in  the  truth." 

However  much  Tolstoy's  interpretation  of 
the  gospels  may  be  astray,  we  have  the  feel- 
ing, wherever  he  carries  us,  that  he  is  at  least 
within  the  field  of  reahty,  that  he  is  a  prophet 
crying  in  the  wilderness,  commanding  men  to 
change  their  manner  of  living.  He  has  asublime 
confidence  in  his  message,  like  unto  the  con- 
fidence of  Him  who  spoke  on  the  shore  of 
Galilee.  That  it  is  a  practical  message  is  his 
profound  conviction.  That  daily  living  ac- 
cording to  this  message  is  the  only  source  of 
happiness,  he  believes  he  has  proven  by  ex- 
perience. That  "  there  is  no  salvation  without 
the  fulfilment  of  Christ's  teaching"  is  his  con- 
stant declaration.  It  is  a  severe  message  for 
those  who  make  religion  only  a  magic  charm 


io8  Will  the  Home  Survive 

that  in  some  mysterious  way  is  to  save  them 
after  they  have  spent  their  Hves  robbing  their 
neighbors,  crushing  out  their  competitors,  Hv- 
ing  Hves  of  successive  polygamy  or  continuous 
fornication,  plundering  the  public  treasury  or 
crushing  the  life  out  of  the  poor.  But  it  is 
at  least  real.  Tolstoy  has  been  sincere,  and 
has  reminded  Christendom  that  in  the  future 
the  world  is  to  have  little  interest  in  those 
things  about  which  no  man  can  be  certain,  and 
that  if  the  church  continues  to  proclaim 
Christ's  teachings  impractical  the  church  must 
surrender  its  right  to  lead  mankind. 

With  the  same  spirit  of  sincerity,  Tolstoy 
set  himself  to  study  the  family.  Discovering 
that  it  is  hedged  about  by  unholy  influences 
meaningless  customs,  and  immoral  practices, 
he  attacks  the  family  life  of  his  country  with, 
merciless  vigor.  At  the  same  time  with  equal 
power,  he  pictures  what,  in  his  conception,  the 
relation  between  the  sexes  should  be. 

The  ideal  state,  as  Tolstoy  believes,  is  the 
single  life.  He  bases  his  view  upon  Matt.  5  : 
28  and  19:   10,  II,  12.     Taking  these  words 


Tolstoy's  Conception  of  Marriage     109 

as  the  foundation  of  his  thought  he  preaches 
that  complete  abstinence  is  the  ideal,  though  it 
result  in  the  extinction  of  the  human  race. 
The  words  of  the  Gospel :  "  Whosoever  look- 
eth  on  a  woman  to  lust  after  her  hath  com- 
mitted adultery  with  her  already  in  his  heart," 
apply  not  only  to  the  wives  of  other  men,  but 
mainly  to  a  man's  own  wife.  Wedding  tours 
and  excursions  of  young  married  people  are 
only  licenses  authorized  by  their  elders  to  un- 
limited pleasures.  Jesus  had  in  mind  total  ab- 
stinence, and  He  illustrated  the  ideal  life  by  liv- 
ing Himself  in  the  unmarried  state. 

This  would  result  in  the  final  extinction  of 
the  human  race.  But  why  should  the  race 
continue  to  exist  ?  If  life  has  no  aim,  if  there 
is  no  purpose  for  it,  if  it  exists  simply  for  the 
sake  of  existing,  then  there  is  no  reason  why 
it  should  continue.  If  there  is  no  purpose  for 
its  existence,  then  Schopenhauer  and  the  Bud- 
dhists were  right.  On  the  other  hand,  if  there 
is  an  object  for  human  existence,  then  as  soon 
as  that  end  has  been  attained  there  is  likewise 
no  further  reason  for  humanity  to  continue. 


no  Will  the  Home  Survive 

Supposing  the  purpose  for  the  race  to  be  the 
attainment  of  goodness  and  love,  as  the  an- 
cient prophets  proclaimed  it  to  be,  that  men 
should  be  so  united  that  all  swords  should  be 
turned  into  ploughshares,  then  what  is  the 
thing  which  keeps  the  race  from  the  accom- 
plishment of  this  ideal  ?  It  is  passion.  If, 
therefore,  we  can  extirpate  stubborn  and 
wicked  passion,  the  prophecy  will  be  fulfilled, 
the  aim  and  mission  of  humanity  will  be  ac- 
complished, and  there  will  be  no  reason  for  the 
further  existence  of  the  race.  The  purpose  of 
our  existence  is  not  to  multiply  like  rabbits, 
but  to  attain  to  goodness  and  love ;  when  we 
accomplish  this  work  then  the  race  should  be- 
come extinct. 

Tolstoy  thinks  this  theory  should  not  startle 
men,  as  it  has  been  proclaimed  both  by  the 
church  and  by  science.  All  theology  has 
been  based  on  the  theory  that  the  world  will 
sooner  or  later  come  to  an  end,  and  modern 
science  teaches  the  same  thing.  The  only 
difference  is  that  theology  and  modern  science 
postpone  that  event  for  a  longer  time.     But  why 


Tolstoy's  Cojtceptton  of  Marriage     iii 

postpone  it?  If  our  generation  does  not  at- 
tain the  purpose  of  its  existence,  the  problem 
will  simply  be  handed  on  to  the  next  genera- 
tion, and  so  on,  ad  infinitum.  It  would  be 
better  for  us  to  accomplish  our  work  and 
cease  from  pain  and  sorrow. 

Nothing  that  Tolstoy  has  wTitten  has  been 
criticised  more  than  this  theory.  And  it  has 
been  criticised  largely  on  the  ground  that 
Tolstoy  did  not  practice  it  himself,  but  mar- 
ried and  had  a  happy  home,  becoming  the 
father  of  thirteen  children.  This,  however,  is 
an  unfair  criticism,  as  Tolstoy  did  not  arrive  at 
his  present  philosophical  and  religious  attitude 
until  long  after  his  marriage.  There  is  no 
reason  to  doubt  that  had  he  arrived  at  this 
conception  earlier  in  life  he  would  have 
abstained  from  the  marriage  state. 

He  insists  upon  certain  ideals  for  the  married 
life,  which  for  purity  and  loftiness  cannot  be 
excelled.  First  he  insists  that  there  must  be 
"  purity  before  marriage,"  a  state  which  he  did 
not  realize  for  himself,  because  adultery  in  the 
single  state,  rather  than  being  condemned  by 


112  Will  the  Home  Survive 

his  social  class,  was  encouraged  as  a  thing 
both  natural  and  necessary  for  good  health. 
As  a  result  he  believes  that  out  of  a  thousand 
of  his  countrymen  who  marry,  there  is 
scarcely  one  "  who  has  not  been  married  be- 
fore innumerable  times."  People  may  feign 
to  believe  that  this  is  not  true,  but  everybody 
knows  that  it  is  the  actual  state  of  things, 
everybody  except  the  poor  girl  to  whom  a 
man  gives  himself  for  the  first  time.  In  all 
sincerity  she  thinks  he  is  pure,  but  men  know 
that  few  have  retained  their  purity. 

The  essence  of  this  sin  is  not  what  it  im- 
ports physically,  but  "  what  is  wrong  is  the 
exemption  of  one's  self  from  all  moral  rela- 
tions when  terms  of  intimacy  exist."  Men  do 
not  ask  for  the  affection  of  the  lewd  woman, 
nor  will  they  give  to  her  their  affection. 
They  will  not  be  fettered  by  the  giving  and 
receiving  of  affection.  They  seek  their  own 
gratification,  and  in  withdrawing  this  most 
moral  of  all  acts  from  without  the  circle  of 
moral  significance  for  their  own  selfish  ends, 
they   commit    a   crime   which    can    only   be 


Tolstoys  Conception  of  Marriage     113 

measured  by  the  depths  to  which  they  have 
degraded  pure  womanhood,  and  by  the  cruelty 
of  their  own  selfish  desires.  Man  who  asks 
purity  of  woman  should  have  the  same  thing 
to  offer  that  he  asks  of  her. 

Next  to  the  sin  of  adultery  committed  by 
men,  lies  the  black  sin  of  women  who  appeal 
to  the  sensual  passions  of  men.  Many  women 
are  well  aware  "  that  what  is  commonly  called 
sublime  and  poetical  love  depends  not  upon 
moral  qualities,  but  on  frequent  meetings,  and 
on  the  style  in  which  the  hair  is  done  up  and 
on  the  color  and  cut  of  the  dress."  The  ex- 
perienced coquette,  eagerly  bent  upon  cap- 
tivating a  man,  would  rather  be  convicted  of 
deceit,  and  even  of  immoral  conduct,  than  ap- 
pear before  him  in  a  badly  made  or  ugly  dress. 
Loose  women  appear  in  dress  like  that  of  many 
women  in  pure  society ;  they  appear  in  such 
dress  to  appeal  the  more  strongly  to  the  pas- 
sions of  men.  The  conclusion  must  be  that 
the  so-called  respectable  women  have  the  same 
aim,  for  people  who  differ  in  their  aims  will 
surely  reflect  their  aims  in  their  outward  con- 


114  Will  the  HoDte  Survive 

duct.  "  Look  now  upon  the  unfortunate  and 
despised  sisterhood  of  fallen  women  and  com- 
pare them  with  the  ladies  of  the  highest 
society.  What  do  you  observe  ?  The  same 
toilets,  the  same  costumes,  the  same  perfumes, 
the  same  exposure  of  the  arms  and  shoulders, 
the  same  projections  behind,  the  same  passion 
for  jewelry,  for  costly,  glittering  ornaments,  the 
same  amusements,  dances,  music,  and  song. 
And  as  the  former  class  of  women  employ  all 
these  things  for  the  purposes  of  seduction,  so 
also  do  the  latter.  There  is  absolutely  no  dif- 
ference between  them." 

Kreutzer  Sonata,  a  novel  published  in  1889, 
disseminated  in  hundreds  of  thousands  of  copies 
and  read  by  millions,  a  novel  which  is  so 
vulgar  that  it  was  denied  admission  to  the 
United  States  mail,  yet  which  is  nevertheless 
true  to  certain  aspects  of  life,  is  a  terrible  in- 
dictment against  marriages  which  were  born 
from  this  appeal  to  passion  rather  than  from 
higher  and  more  spiritual  motives.  Posny- 
schefif,  who  had  led  a  dissolute  life,  and  hence 
was  an  easy  victim  to  any  excitement,  met  a 


Tolstoy's  Conception  of  Marriage     115 

young  woman  who  was  dressed  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  stir  his  animal  hfe,  which  he 
mistook  for  the  dawn  of  love.  "  Ecstasies, 
tenderness,  and  poetry  were  all  there,  in 
appearance  at  least,  but  in  reality  my  love  was 
the  result  of  the  contrivances  of  the  mamma 
and  the  dressmaker  on  the  one  hand,  and 
good  dinnei-s  and  inactivity  on  the  other.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  there  had  been  no  boating 
excursions,  no  dressmakers  to  arrange  wasp- 
like waists,  and  so  on ;  had  my  wife  been 
dressed  in  a  plain  gown  and  stayed  at  home ; 
and  if,  on  the  other  hand,  I  had  been  leading 
a  normal  life,  I  should  not  have  fallen  in  love, 
and  all  that  took  place  subsequently  and  in 
consequence  of  that,  would  never  have 
occurred." 

It  was  a  marriage  born  of  lust.  There  was 
no  spiritual  communion  between  them.  Con- 
versation was  carried  on  with  difficulty,  as 
they  possessed  so  little  in  common.  When 
lust  was  once  satisfied  love  was  dormant,  until 
passion  again  brought  it  into  being.  The 
marriage  being  the  fruit  of  lust,  their  children 


Ii6  Will  the  Home  Survive 

were  never  welcome  and  never  received  the 
care  of  the  parents.  A  musician  came  into 
their  home  and  Posnyscheff 's  suspicions  being 
aroused  his  jealousy  began  to  grow,  until  one 
night  finding  the  musician  in  his  wife's  com- 
pany, in  a  rage  of  jealousy  he  killed  her.  Im- 
prisoned, he  had  time  to  repent  of  his  crime. 
Had  he  realized  the  meaning  of  Christ's 
words  ;  "  Whosoever  looketh  on  a  woman  to 
lust  after  her,"  he  would  have  been  saved 
from  his  unhappy  life  and  his  crime.  The 
story  was  not  intended  to  prove  that  marriage 
is  a  failure,  but  that  marriage  entered  into 
for  any  except  the  highest  and  purest  motives 
is  the  source  of  misery  and  sin,  and  that  those 
who  enter  marriages  from  low  motives  are  no 
better  after  their  marriage  than  they  were 
before. 

This  book  is  repulsive  beyond  expression 
but  it  is  a  powerful  protest  against  a  system 
of  match-making  which  Tolstoy  regards  as 
worse  than  the  match-makings  of  the  heathen. 
In  old  times  the  parents  arranged  the  match 
when  the  girl  was  of  age.     This   is  still  true 


Tolstois  Conception  of  Marriage     117 

with  the  Chinese,  the  Indians,  Mohammedans, 
and  the  lower  orders  of  Russians.  The 
system  has  this  advantage,  "  that  the  rights 
and  chances  are  equal  on  both  sides."  "  Our 
system  is  a  thousand  times  more  degrading  " 
because  it  makes  woman  "  either  a  slave  in 
the  market  or  a  mere  decoy."  Having  unfair 
advantages  with  man,  she  must  resort  to 
methods  which  will  counterbalance  his  rights. 
If  he  will  use  her  for  his  instrument  of 
pleasure,  she  must  study  to  enslave  him. 
This  is  what  she  does.  "  Woman  acts  upon 
the  senses  of  man,  and  through  his  senses  so 
completely  enslaves  him  that  his  right  of 
choice  dwindles  away  to  a  mere  formality." 
Having  once  mastered  the  means  of  conquest 
she  abuses  them  and  thereby  acquires  a 
terrible  power  over  men.  Only  as  this 
pernicious  system  is  overcome  and  marriage  is 
lifted  into  a  higher  realm,  a  spiritual  atmos- 
phere, can  we  hope  for  happy  homes. 

Not  only  should  the  marriage  state  be 
entered  from  the  highest  spiritual  motives,  but 
it  should  be  maintained  with  one  woman  who 


-♦ 


Ii8  Will  the  Home  Sttrvive 

should  give  to  the  world  well-born  and  well- 
trained  children.  Tolstoy  again  and  again 
condemns  the  ease  with  which  the  physician 
enables  the  woman  to  turn  from  the  realiza- 
tion of  the  highest  end  of  her  existence,  and 
Posnyscheff  declares  that  the  moment  the 
doctor  said  that  his  wife  must  bear  no  more 
children,  and  forbidding  her  to  nurse  her 
child  handed  it  over  to  the  care  of  another, 
the  chasm  between  himself  and  his  wife  was 
widened,  and  all  hope  of  future  reconciliation 
was  taken  away.  None  of  Tolstoy's  children 
were  ever  unwelcome  to  himself  or  to  his  wife, 
nor  were  given  to  the  care  of  a  nurse.  Nordau 
nowhere  shows  his  inability  to  understand 
Tolstoy  more  than  where  he  says  that  for  him 
"  marriage  is  quite  as  impure  as  the  loosest 
tie."  Tolstoy  teaches  just  the  opposite.  He 
constantly  protests  against  the  looseness  of 
sexual  relations,  and  declares  that  only  as  man 
and  woman  live  in  fidelity  to  one  another,  and 
as  both  share  in  the  fulfilment  of  the  mission 
nature  has  set  for  them,  can  there  be  any 
hope  of  a  wholesome  family  hfe. 


VI 
THE  FAMILY  IN  MODERN  FICTION 

The  question  of  the  real  value  of  the  prob- 
lem novel  and  play  will  evoke  a  variety  of 
opinions.  Especially  is  this  true  of  the 
drama.  It  is  our  opinion  that  the  drama, 
which  deals  with  social  problems,  tends  to 
produce  excitement  and  prejudice  of  a  not 
very  healthy  kind  rather  than  cool  and  serious 
thought.  A  large  audience  may  pass  from 
the  theatre  with  their  spiritual  temperature  far 
below  zero,  after  listening  to  Hauptmann's 
Weavers,  or  The  Sunken  Bell,  as  a  result  of 
having  received  the  impression  that  people  are 
almost  powerless  in  their  fight  against  the 
forces  of  heredity  and  environment.  Yet  this 
is  only  an  impression.  The  play  has  not 
solved  the  problem  which  is  still  in  the  boiling 
crucible  of  conscience.  Men  who  seriously 
study  the  question  of  heredity  to-day  are  not 

nearly  so  certain  about  it  as  were  the  men  of 

119 


I20  Will  the  Home  Survive 

a  generation  ago,  yet  the  play,  by  means  of  an 
impression,  has  sent  the  audience  away  feeling 
that  they  were  in  bondage  to  this  ghost,  who 
has  crept  down  from  their  ancestors  to  haunt 
them.  Maeterlinck  in  one  weak  play,  The 
Blind ^  would  brush  away  all  the  results  of  the 
study  of  comparative  religions,  and  Ibsen,  by 
introducing  us  to  a  few  neurasthenic  and 
hysterical  women,  mated  with  weak  and 
abnormal  men,  would  bankrupt  the  institution 
of  the  family.  At  best  the  problem  play  can 
only  awaken  prejudice,  divorced  from  intelh- 
gence,  and  as  such  can  contribute  nothing  to- 
wards the  solution  of  great  social  questions. 
It  is  a  hindrance  rather  than  an  aid  to  this 
end. 

The  novel  may  contribute  more  towards 
the  solution  of  social  questions  for  the  simple 
reason  that  it  has  more  space  in  which  to 
reveal  facts  and  mass  arguments.  When  it 
does  this,  however,  it  is  no  longer  literature 
with  an  argument,  but  an  argument  much 
weakened  by  the  fact  that  it  is  cumbered  by 
fiction.     It  cannot  be   denied  that  there  are 


The  Family  in  Modern  Fiction     121 

times  when  an  impression  is  more  valuable 
than  an  argument.  An  Uncle  Toms  Cabin 
will  accomplish  what  no  abstract  treatise  on 
liberty  could  do.  But  the  major  part  of  our 
social  questions,  like  those  of  heredity  and  the 
family,  cannot  be  solved  by  the  stirring  of  the 
emotions  of  a  nation.  Calm  investigation  and 
patient  experience  alone  can  solve  these 
questions. 

Yet  limited  as  the  novel  is  for  the  gigantic 
task  of  treating  social  questions,  it  is  more 
and  more  being  used  for  this  purpose.  Al- 
most every  phase  of  the  family  question  can 
be  found  in  the  modern  novel,  and  from  no 
source  is  the  attack  upon  the  traditional  con- 
ceptions of  the  family  more  severe  than  from 
those  "  Hilltop "  novels  which  deal  with 
family  life.  We  turn  our  attention,  therefore, 
in  this  chapter  to  a  few  of  those  novels  which 
deal  with  various  phases  of  this  question. 

The  conception  of  marriage  as  a  sacrament 
is  argued  by  Paul  Bourget,  a  Roman  CathoHc, 
who  takes  the  side  of  the  church  against  the 
state  in  the  conflict   which  for  several  years 


122  Will  the  Home  Survive 

has  been  in  progress  in  France.  He  sees 
this  conflict  as  a  part  of  a  great  modern  move- 
ment, led  by  ill-balanced  minds,  who  "  would 
destroy  all  existing  order,  whilst  dreaming  of 
an  impossible  millennium,"  and  who  are  sure 
to  lead  us  into  an  intolerant  anarchism.  The 
law  of  France  permitting  divorce  and  remar- 
riage, a  law  contrary  to  the  traditions  of  the 
nation,  is  to  Bourget  an  indication  of  this 
anarchistic  movement  which  is  destined  to 
bring  untold  suffering  and  degradation.  His 
novel,  A  Divorce,  is  one  of  the  strongest 
works  of  fiction  dealing  with  this  subject  that 
has  been  written,  the  purpose  of  it  being  to 
show  that  the  civil  law  granting  divorce  is 
"  destructive  of  family  life,  subversive  of 
religion,  the  source  of  anarchy  and  revolu- 
tion." 

The  story  centres  about  a  woman  who  was 
separated  from  her  first  husband,  and  who 
contrary  to  the  laws  of  her  church  remarried. 
Her  second  husband  was  not  a  believer  in  the 
dogmas  of  the  church  and  she  followed  him  in 
his  belief.     After  a  few  years,  however,  finding 


The  Family  in  Modern  Fiction     123 

her  faith  returning,  she  sought  reconcihation 
with  her  church,  but  only  to  find  that  this  was 
impossible.  The  priest  to  whom  she  went 
for  confession  stated  clearly  the  Roman 
Catholic  position,  which  is,  the  recognition  of 
separation  between  husband  and  wife  when 
the  marriage  relation  is  not  bearable,  but  by 
no  means  the  annulment  of  the  marriage  tie. 
This  being  true,  her  second  marriage  could 
count  for  nothing  in  the  eyes  of  the  church. 
The  priest  urged  that  this  seemingly  arbi- 
trary law  of  the  church  is  based  on  the  needs 
of  society  and  on  the  laws  of  nature.  Both 
justice  and  charity  demand  that  the  individual 
be  sacrificed  for  the  general  good  of  society. 
Divorce  separates  families,  destroying  unity 
of  spirit  and  common  tradition,  without  which 
there  can  be  no  social  permanence  but  only 
anarchy  and  perpetual  unrest.  Society  de- 
velops towards  monogamy,  but  "  divorce  is 
successive  polygamy."  Thus  those  who  seek 
divorce,  sacrifice  society  to  their  own  happi- 
ness, setting  up  an  irregular  home,  destructive 
of  order. 


124  Will  the  Home  Survive 

Not  only  is  the  law  of  the  church,  accord- 
ing to  the  priest,  based  on  the  needs  of 
society,  it  is  also  based  on  the  laws  of  nature. 
The  civil  law  granting  divorce  ignores  the  law 
of  heredity  and  the  power  of  tradition  which 
binds  families  together  by  ties  that  cannot  be 
broken.  Children  by  a  first  husband  cannot 
love  a  second  husband  to  whom  the  mother 
has  been  married,  consequently  bitter  antag- 
onisms arise.  The  whole  arrangement,  being 
irregular,  results  in  fierce  jealousy  and  hideous 
strifes. 

The  novel  is  a  skilful  working  out  of  these 
principles.  The  loose  family  relations  caused 
by  the  granting  of  divorce  by  the  civil  law  bore 
the  natural  fruits  of  the  doctrine  of  free  love. 
This  woman's  son  by  her  first  husband  be- 
came an  advocate  of  this  conception  of  mar- 
riage. To  him  "  marriage  is  a  contract  be- 
tween a  man's  conscience  and  a  woman's  con- 
science." Civil  and  religious  law  could  add 
nothing  to  it.  "  The  only  true  marriage,  the 
only  one  which  is  absolutely  unstained  by 
hypocritical  convention,  is  free  union."     Con-' 


The  Family  in  Modern  Fiction     125 

trary  to  the  desire  of  his  parents,  and  in 
defiance  of  the  traditions  of  both  church  and 
state,  he  ran  away,  taking  the  woman  he 
loved  as  his  wife.  It  is  a  picture,  so  Bourget 
thinks,  of  what  must  logically  follow  as  soon 
as  we  admit  the  principle  of  divorce. 

The  inevitable  sufferings  which  come  to  the 
parties  of  the  second  marriage  are  vividly 
portrayed.  The  son  by  the  first  husband,  in 
accordance  with  the  inevitable  law  of  his 
being,  came  to  hate  his  stepfather.  The 
wife  came  gradually  to  feel  the  unnatural 
position  she  occupied  and  in  quest  of  happi- 
ness left  her  second  husband.  But  happiness 
could  not  be  found.  She  was  a  prisoner  to 
divorce,  and  she  cursed  the  "  impious  law,  to 
whose  seductions  her  feminine  weakness  had 
succumbed."  The  law  of  divorce  had  promised 
her  freedom  and  happiness,  but  all "  she  found, 
like  so  many  of  her  sisters,  was  captivity  and 
wretchedness." 

The  weakness  of  this  novel  is  the  weakness 
of  this  entire  attitude  towards  marriage  and 
divorce.     Bourget    unconsciously    makes    the 


126  Will  the  Hofne  Survive 

free  love  of  the  rebellious  son  too  attractive. 
He  leaves  us  with  the  impression  that  the  son's 
happy  life  is  much  to  be  preferred  to  the  life 
of  the  poor  woman  fighting  for  her  happiness 
against  the  arbitrary  law  of  the  church. 
While  the  priest  declares  that  the  law  rests 
upon  nature  all  that  is  really  human  in  us 
speaks  against  it.  We  feel  that  we  would 
rather  be  the  son  with  his  free  love,  his  pure 
and  happy  home,  than  the  woman  enslaved  by 
a  soulless  institution.  She  fought  con- 
tinually against  her  nature  to  meet  the  demands 
of  an  abstract  law,  not  made  to  meet  her 
individual  case  but  to  meet  cases  in  general, 
and  she  sacrificed  herself  to  an  institution 
which  could  not  understand  her,  which  makes 
no  allowance  for  individual  peculiarities,  and 
hence  whose  action  of  necessity  must  be  as 
soulless  as  the  rock-crusher  grinding  stones 
into  pebbles  for  the  streets.  The  argument  of 
the  novel  breaks  down  utterly  when  tested  in 
the  light  of  human  instincts  and  passions. 

The    moral    result    of  refusing   to    remarry 
divorced  people  is  very  serious.     It  is  almost 


The  Family  in  Modem  Fiction     127 

inevitable  that  if  this  refusal  is  carried  too 
far  it  will  result  in  increased  indifference  to 
marriage  conventionalities.  Natural  law  is 
stronger  than  legislation,  whether  of  state  or  of 
church,  and  if  either  church  or  state  refuses  to 
meet  the  reasonable  demands  of  human  nature 
the  result  must  in  the  end  be  the  indiffer- 
ence of  men  and  women  to  civil  and  religious 
forms.  When  men  are  stirred  by  the  over- 
powering passion  of  love,  they  will  not  permit 
the  law  of  man  to  stand  in  the  way  of  the 
consummation  of  their  happiness. 

Not  only  must  this  refusal  in  many  cases 
result  in  a  disregard  for  the  conventional  forms 
of  marriage,  but  where  the  law  is  strictly 
enforced  it  will  result  in  immorality.  We 
often  declare  that  divorce  is  immoral  and  we 
are  shocked  when  we  learn  of  the  increase  of 
divorce  throughout  Europe  and  America.  A 
loose,  thoughtless  divorce,  where  men  and 
women  change  their  partners  as  at  a  dance,  is 
always  immoral,  but  it  does  not  necessarily 
follow  that  divorce  in  itself  is  immoral.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  1  efusal  to  remarry  divorced 


128  Will  the  Home  Survive 

people  has  in  nearly  all  the  countries  of  Europe 
resulted  in  loose  marriage  relations.  If 
churches  or  states  refuse  to  give  their  approval 
to  the  God-implanted  passion  of  sex,  human 
beings  will  follow  the  law  of  their  natures  and 
live  in  free  union.  Calvinism  was  destroyed 
not  so  much  by  the  logic  of  theologians  as  by 
the  love  of  mothers  for  their  children,  and 
whenever  an  arbitrary  law  of  the  church  or 
state  stands  in  the  way  of  a  reasonable  demand 
of  human  passion,  the  law  must  in  the  end  be 
defeated  or  ignored,  and  the  human  demand 
gain  its  right.  This  is  what  has  already  oc- 
curred, and  will  continue  to  occur,  whenever 
the  church  tries  to  measure  all  conditions  and 
temperaments  by  one  inflexible  law. 

What  could  be  more  absurdly  cruel  than 
the  refusal  to  remarry  the  innocent  parties  of 
divorce?  It  is  most  unreasonable,  as  the  Rev. 
Samuel  H.  Bishop,  a  thoughtful  clergyman  of 
the  Episcopal  Church,  has  said,  "  that  a  man 
may  drag  his  wife  down  into  the  foulest  gut- 
ters, may  debase  and  debauch  her  in  body  and 
soul,  may  make  life  a  perfect  hell  to  her,  and 


The  Fatnily  in  Modern  Fiction     129 

she  have  no  remedy  except  separation,  perma- 
nent widowhood,  and  prohibition  of  all  pos- 
sibility of  gaining  human  happiness  and  true 
love  while  he  and  she  live  on  the  earth," 

The  only  possible  ground  for  refusing  to  re- 
marry divorced  couples  is  that  this  refusal  will 
act  as  a  check  upon  the  looseness  of  divorce, 
but  a  careful  study  of  the  statistics  proves  that 
this  is  not  true.  Contrary  to  popular  opinion, 
restriction  upon  the  remarriage  of  divorced 
persons  does  not  affect  in  any  large  degree  the 
divorce  rate.  The  fact  is  that  divorce  is  de- 
pendent upon  social  forces  which  lie  deep  in 
human  nature  and  are  in  a  large  measure  be- 
yond the  control  of  the  statute-maker.  This 
is  not  minimizing  the  value  of  divorce  laws. 
Good  laws  may  check  hasty  impulse,  and  force 
individuals  to  reflect.  They  may  also  secure 
a  certain  degree  of  publicity  which  will  act  as 
a  restraining  influence.  But  as  the  facts  stand, 
they  seem  to  prove  that  the  refusal  to  remarry 
divorced  people  does  not  prevent  the  increase 
in  divorce. 

This  protest  of  man  against  soulless  law  is 


130  Will  the  Home  Szirvive 

finding  expression  in  the  literature  of  our 
Southland.  Divorce  is  one  of  the  greatest  dis- 
graces that  can  come  upon  a  Kentucky  family. 
A  man  may  drink  intoxicants  excessively, 
abuse  his  wife,  maintain  the  loosest  relations 
with  negro  women,  but  the  marriage  is  "  until 
death  us  do  part."  Elizabeth  Waltz  thinks 
the  time  has  come  to  alleviate  the  sufferings 
of  the  Southern  woman  who  is  unfortunate 
enough  to  be  mated  with  a  man  with  whom 
she  can  have  no  happiness,  and  her  book,  The 
Ancient  Landmark,  is  dedicated  "  to  those 
men  and  women  who  take  the  larger  view  and 
who  walk  in  the  light  of  it."  The  book  is  by 
no  means  an  argument  that  men  and  women 
should  change  their  partners  thoughtlessly  or 
frivolously  ;  it  is  rather  a  protest  against  a  social 
and  religious  system  which  makes  it  necessary 
for  women  to  suffer  with  cruel  and  domineer- 
ing men. 

One  of  the  most  tragic,  soul-rending  novels 
of  the  past  year,  a  novel  which  reveals  the  suf- 
ferings, both  physical  and  spiritual,  as  well  as 
the  immorality,  to  which  the  Roman  Catholic 


The  Fafuily  in  Modern  Fiction     131 

position  often  drives  men  and  women,  is 
Traffic,  by  E.  Temple  Thurston.  It  is  one  of 
those  novels  almost  every  page  of  which  causes 
us  to  blush.  It  is  a  story  which  tortures  our 
souls  with  lurid  lights  and  painful  pictures, 
which  racks  our  nerves  before  we  reach  the 
last  page,  but  which  compels  us  to  lay  down 
the  book  with  the  reflection  that  if  it  is  true  to 
life,  if  there  is  a  man  or  woman  in  the  whole 
universe  tortured  and  driven  to  crimes  by  a 
marriage  law,  as  this  woman  is  represented  as 
being,  then  the  law  has  no  right  to  continue 
its  pernicious  work.  None  who  take  time  to 
study  the  facts  can  doubt  that  the  book  has 
disclosed  an  actual  condition,  that  it  is  pro- 
foundly true  to  life. 

Robert  Grant  represents  the  class  of  writers 
who  protest  against  the  sacramental  interpre- 
tation of  marriage  and  plead  for  the  right  of 
the  individual.  The  Utidercurrent  is  a  strong 
presentation  of  this  phase  of  the  divorce  ques- 
tion. Grant  finds  the  foundation  of  marriage 
in  the  instincts  of  sex.  It  is  easy  for  the 
moralist    to    sit    at   his    desk   and  formulate 


132  Will  the  Home  Survive 

ideal  truths  respecting  the  marriage  relation, 
but  "  the  renewal  of  the  race  through  the 
union  of  the  sexes  is  an  instinct  which  asserts 
itself  in  spite  of  code  and  thesis,  and  the  insti- 
tution of  lawful  wedlock  is  the  bit  by  which 
civilization  regulates  it."  The  wise  whisper  to 
the  young  not  to  rush  hastily  into  matrimony ; 
scientists  advise  the  isolation  of  the  degenerate 
and  the  diseased  that  they  may  not  produce 
offspring;  the  well-to-do  try  to  screen  their 
daughters  from  the  rough  world,  but  after  all 
care  is  exercised  the  daughters  of  the  rich 
elope,  and  the  daughters  of  the  poor  wed,  be- 
cause the  law  of  sex  is  the  controlling  law  of 
human  life. 

When  young  people,  ignorant  of  life,  are 
brought  together  "  under  the  spell  of  the  law 
of  their  being,"  and  afterwards  find  that  there 
is  no  real  harmony  between  them,  shall  they 
be  compelled  by  the  laws  of  the  state,  or  the 
customs  of  society,  to  remain  together,  having 
their  happiness  destroyed  for  life  ?  The  book 
is  a  negative  answer  to  this  question. 

Constance  in  her  youth  married  a  man  who 


The  Family  in  Modern  Fiction     133 

proved  to  be  unworthy  of  her  love.  He  pros- 
pered for  a  while  in  business,  then  he  failed, 
became  discouraged,  ran  away  from  his  home, 
leaving  his  wife  without  money  to  support  his 
two  children.  After  months  of  struggle  she 
became  a  stenographer  for  a  prosperous  law- 
yer, a  man  of  high  ideals  and  unquestioned 
honor.  Discovering  his  love  for  her,  he  asked 
for  her  hand.  She  longed  to  give  it,  but  her 
first  husband  still  lived,  and  while  she  was  en- 
titled to  a  divorce,  according  to  the  laws  of  her 
state,  in  her  own  mind  it  would  be  contrary  to 
the  "  eternal  fitness  of  things "  to  seek  a 
divorce  and  marry  again.  She  had  made  her 
mistake  and  she  must  suffer  the  penalty. 
Gordon,  her  lover,  tried  to  convince  her  that 
her  attitude  was  unreasonable,  that  she  must 
not  sacrifice  her  happiness  and  his,  but  his 
plea  was  unavailing.  Such  a  marriage  would 
be  against  the  laws  of  her  church,  and  that  for 
her  was  reason  enough  for  refusal.  Her  rec- 
tor said  to  her :  "  Invoke  the  human  law  for 
your  protection  against  your  husband  if  you 
will,  but  he  is  still  your  husband  in  the  eyes 


134  Will  the  Home  Survive 

of  God,  and  if  you  wed  another  you  commit 
adultery."  He  looked  upon  the  modern  dis- 
regard of  this  principle  as  a  blow  at  the  institu- 
tion of  the  family.  The  state,  he  felt,  winks 
at  the  looseness  of  the  holy  tie  and  so  the 
church  is  compelled  to  declare  loudly  that 
"  the  apparent  earthly  happiness  of  one  must 
be  sacrificed  for  the  good  of  the  many." 

Constance  submits  to  this  position,  but  from 
it  Gordon  rebels.  Gordon  asks  the  rector  why 
the  church  has  a  right  to  usurp  the  functions 
of  the  state,  and  deciding  what  is  best  in  a 
temporal  matter,  substitute  an  inflexible  ethical 
standard  for  the  judgment  of  organized  society. 
The  rector  gives  two  reasons :  First,  "  be- 
cause the  church  declines  to  regard  as  a  tem- 
poral matter  an  abuse  which  threatens  the  ex- 
istence of  the  family,  the  corner-stone  of  Chris- 
tian civilization  ;  and  secondly,  because  the 
state  has  flagrantly  neglected  its  duty,  allow- 
ing divorce  to  run  riot  through  the  nation  with- 
out uniform  system  and  decent  limitations." 

Gordon  deals  with  each  of  these  objections. 
First   he   reminds    the   rector  that  this  is  the 


The  Family  in  Modern  Fiction     135 

only  matter  in  the  realm  of  human  social  af- 
fairs where  the  church  interferes.  The  church 
forbids  abstract  vices  but  leaves  the  function 
of  defining  these  vices  to  the  state.  Why  in 
the  matter  of  marriage  should  it  attempt  to 
substitute  canons  for  the  secular  statute  book  ? 
To  the  argument  that  this  is  a  sacrament,  and 
hence  concerns  the  church  alone,  Gordon  re- 
plies that  it  was  not  so  regarded  by  the  early 
Christians.  They  did  not  attempt  to  regulate 
marriage.  The  church  assumed  this  function 
at  a  later  period.  Furthermore,  this  idea  of 
marriage  as  a  sacrament  is  foreign  to  our 
American  life.  It  was  imported  into  this 
country  by  Roman  Catholicism  and  by  the 
Church  of  England.  In  the  early  days  of 
New  England  the  marriage  ceremony  was  per- 
formed by  the  magistrate  and  not  by  the  clergy. 
It  was  the  authority  of  the  commonwealth  and 
not  the  church  that  was  recognized.  The  idea 
of  marriage  as  a  sacrament  was  not  born  of 
the  "  rational,  every-day  reasoning  of  republi- 
can democracy,"  but  of  a  system  that  is  auto- 
cratic, if  not  aristocratic. 


136  Will  the  Home  Survive 

The  rector  tries  to  defend  both  these 
churches  by  pointing  to  their  philanthropic 
efforts,  but  Gordon  insists  that  "  neither  church 
has  compassion  on  the  misery  of  common 
humanity  when  to  reheve  it  would  conflict 
with  the  hard  and  fast  letter  of  church  law." 

Feeling  the  force  of  this  argument,  and  not 
desiring  to  carry  it  further,  the  rector  asks  : 
"  Where  then  will  you  draw  the  hne  ?  "  They 
turn  to  discuss  the  grounds  for  which  the  state 
grants  divorce :  '•  Impotence,  adultery,  deser- 
tion for  three  years,  sentence  for  felony  for  two 
years,  confirmed  habits  of  intoxication,  extreme 
cruelty,  grossly  and  wantonly  refusing  to  sup- 
port a  wife."  The  rector  would  admit  divorce 
for  adultery  only,  but  Gordon  replies  :  "  Pro- 
gressive democracy  in  the  person  of  the  state  is 
more  lenient,  more  merciful.  It  refuses  to  be- 
lieve that  one  relentless,  arbitrary  rule  is  adapted 
to  the  exigencies  of  human  society.  It  insists 
that  each  case  should  be  judged  on  its  merits, 
and  that  both  relief  should  be  afforded  and 
fresh  happiness  permitted  when  justice  so  de- 
mands.    Think  of  the  many  poor  creatures  in 


The  Family  in  Modern  Fiction     137 

the  lower  ranks  condemned  by  your  inexo- 
rable doctrine  to  miserable,  lonely  lives,  who 
might  otherwise  be  happy  !  " 

Gordon  does  not  try  to  defend  the  inade- 
quate laws  of  the  state  and  admits  that  society 
has  been  derelict.  The  evil,  however,  lies  not 
so  much  in  the  bad  laws  of  the  state  as  "  in 
the  looseness  of  administration  sanctioned  in 
some  jurisdictions,  by  means  of  which  collu- 
sive divorces  are  obtained  by  pretended  resi- 
dents, and  close  scrutiny  of  the  facts  is  avoided 
by  the  courts."  These  things  must  be  rem- 
edied, but  democracy,  having  wrung  the 
victory  from  the  clergy  and  placed  marriage 
under  the  secular  law,  will  never  again  consent 
to  deny  to  a  husband  or  a  wife,  who  has  suf- 
fered a  cruel  wrong,  the  freedom  to  break  the 
bond  and  marry  again.  The  people  are 
aroused  to  the  evils  of  divorce,  "  the  licentious 
shuffling  on  and  off  of  the  marriage  tie 
through  temporary  residence  and  collusive  pro- 
ceedings in  other  states,"  but  on  the  other  hand 
men  and  women  will  no  longer  believe  that 
they  should  sacrifice  their  happiness  until  death 


138  Will  the  Home  Survive 

on  account  of  the  vices  of  others.  The  privi- 
lege of  remarriage  is  demanded  for  the  welfare 
of  humanity,  for  the  prevention  of  immoraUty, 
for  where  divorce  is  forbidden  immorahty 
abounds,  "  for  the  protection  and  reHef  of  the 
suffering  and  virtuous  and  the  joyous  refresh- 
ment of  maimed,  tired  Hves." 

To  the  objection  that  this  view  of  marriage 
and  divorce  would  lead  ultimately  to  the  grant- 
ing of  divorce  on  the  ground  of  incompatibility, 
Gordon  confesses  that  this  seems  to  be  the  inev- 
itable issue  of  the  question.  If  people  reach 
the  conclusion  that  it  is  not  for  the  welfare  of 
themselves  or  their  children  to  remain  together 
the  state  will  probably  give  them  their  liberty. 
''  But  one  thing  is  certain,  the  church  will 
never  be  able  again  to  fasten  upon  the  world 
its  arbitrary  standard." 

Constance  was  firm  in  her  position  and  for 
many  months  she  would  not  yield,  but  finally 
the  law  of  her  nature  gained  the  ascendency 
over  her  reason  and  she  yielded,  and  in  yield- 
ing found  happiness. 

The  philosophy  of  marriage  which  under- 


The  Fainily  in  Modern  Fictiofi      139 

lies  this  book,  in  common  with  the  works  of 
all  extreme  individualists,  is  that  marriage  in 
its  essential  nature  is  a  spiritual  relation  be- 
tween man  and  woman.  The  mere  forms  of 
the  marriage  ceremony,  whether  of  church  or 
state,  do  not  constitute  real  marriage.  Mar- 
riage is  a  relationship  between  man  and 
woman  constituted  by  marriage-love,  and 
marriage  continues  only  so  long  as  marriage- 
love  continues.  But  marriage-love  may  die, 
like  any  other  feeling.  When  this  occurs 
there  is  no  longer  any  real  marriage.  The 
passing  of  marriage-love  has  really  dissolved 
the  marriage  relationship.  Hence  divorce 
must  be  given  not  only  for  causes  which  touch 
the  flesh  but  even  more  for  causes  which 
touch  the  spirit.  Spiritual  incompatibility 
may  be  a  greater  reason  for  divorce  than 
physical  adultery.  Indeed,  many  even  ven- 
ture to  suggest  that  those  who  live  together 
having  no  bonds  of  affinity  are  really  living 
in  adultery.  In  such  cases,  divorce  can  only 
be  the  breaking  of  a  legal  bond  which  holds 
two   persons   together  who  are  not  actually 


140  Will  the  Ho7ne  Survive 

married.  "  It  is  not  a  violent  rupture  of  a 
sacred  relationship  but  a  formal  recognition 
that  this  relationship  in  its  full  sanctity  had 
never  existed."  Divorce  separates  only  those 
who  have  no  moral  right  to  live  together. 

This  position  was  advocated  by  Milton. 
He  says :  "  The  internal  form  and  soul  of 
this  relation  (marriage)  is  conjugal  love  aris- 
ing from  a  mutual  fitness  to  the  final  causes  of 
wedlock.  .  .  .  When  love  finds  itself  un- 
matched, and  justly  vanishes,  nay  cannot  but 
vanish,  the  fleshly  relation  may  indeed  con- 
tinue, but  not  holy,  not  pure,  not  beseeming 
the  sacred  bond  of  marriage ;  being  truly 
gross  and  more  ignoble  than  the  mute  kindli- 
ness between  herds  and  flocks.  .  .  .  Why, 
then,  shall  divorce  be  granted  for  want  of 
(bodily  fidelity)  and  not  for  want  of  fitness  to 
the  intimate  conversation,  whereas  corporal 
benevolence  cannot  by  any  human  fashion  be 
without  this  ?  " 

The  fact  which  appears  most  clearly  in 
modern  literature  as  it  touches  the  family  is 
that  "  the  internal  form  and  soul  "  of  marriage 


The  Family  in  Modern  Fiction      141 

is  not  found  alone  in  the  physical  relation 
between  man  and  woman,  but  is  found  in  a 
spiritual  relationship.  Nowhere  is  this  more 
beautifully  expressed  than  in  Phillips'  Sin  of 
David,  where  Lisle  says  : 

"  Our  former  marriage,  though  by  holy  bell 
And  melody  of  lifted  voices  blest, 
Was  yet  in  madness  of  the  blood  conceived, 
And  born  of  murder  :  therefore  is  the  child 
Withdrawn,  that  we  might  feel  the  sting  of  flesh 
Corruptible  ;  yet  he  in  that  withdrawal. 
Folded  upon  the  bosom  of  the  Father, 
Hath  joined  us  in  a  marriage  everlasting ; 
Marriage  at  last  of  spirit,  not  of  sense. 
Whose  ritual  is  memory  and  repentance, 
Whose  sacrament  this  deep  and  mutual  wound, 
Whose  covenant  the  all  that  might  have  been." 

Upon  this  conception  of  marriage  both  in- 
dividualist and  socialist  unite,  declaring  that 
absolute  freedom  must  be  given  to  break  the 
union  when  the  spiritual  bonds  which  hold  it 
together  no  longer  exist. 

When  it  is  objected  that  this  freedom 
would  open  the  door  to  all  sort  of  profligacy 
and  sexual  looseness,  it  is  replied  that  it  would 
not  lead  us  to  condemn  adultery  less,  but 
would  make  us  condemn  spiritual  defects  more. 


142  Will  the  Home  Survive 

It  would  place  a  social  stigma  on  those  whose 
bad  tempers  render  separation  necessary. 
Mallock  declares  that  it  would  not  only  make 
adultery  venial,  but  would  place  other  faults 
under  a  precisely  similar  condemnation. 

There  can  be  no  question  that  there  is  a 
great  truth  expressed  in  this  conception  of 
marriage.  The  more  developed  our  civiliza- 
tion and  the  higher  our  culture,  both  intel- 
lectual and  moral,  the  more  do  the  real  mis- 
eries of  unhappy  marriage  relations  come 
from  the  realm  of  the  spirit  rather  than  from 
the  flesh.  It  was  the  spiritual  failure  of 
Posnyscheff's  marriage  that  resulted  in  the 
torture  of  his  soul.  He  says :  "  I  was  only 
engaged  for  a  short  time,  and  yet  I  cannot 
recall  that  period  of  my  life  without  shame. 
What  an  abomination  !  The  love  that  united 
us  was  supposed  to  be  of  a  spiritual  char- 
acter. But  if  our  love  and  communings  had 
been  of  a  spiritual  nature,  all  the  words, 
phrases,  and  conversations  that  passed  be- 
tween us  should  have  expressed  this.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  nothing  of  the  kind  took  place. 


The  Family  in  Modern  Fiction      143 

We  found  it  extremely  difficult  to  converse 
when  left  alone  ;  it  was  a  labor  of  Sisyphus.  I 
would  think  of  something  to  say,  say  it,  relapse 
into  silence,  and  then  rack  my  brain  for  some- 
thing else — there  was  absolutely  nothing  to 
converse  about." 

We  all  recognize  the  truth  involved  in  this 
picture.  There  can  be  no  happy  family  with- 
out moral  and  intellectual  sympathy.  There 
can  be  no  home  without  a  communion  of 
spirits.  Marriage  is  torture  unless  men  and 
women  are  drawn  together  in  their  higher  na- 
tures. 

But  shall  we  conclude  from  this  that  when- 
ever "  the  internal  form  and  soul  of  this  rela- 
tion "  is  wanting  the  union  should  be  dissolved  ? 
Even  Mallock,  when  he  fairly  faces  this  ques- 
tion, hesitates.  "  Married  happiness  would  be 
best  secured  and  promoted  by  marriage  be- 
ing at  once  both  dissoluble  and  indissoluble. 
This  seeming  impossibility  would  be  reduced 
to  a  practical  reality  by  the  dissolution  of  mar- 
riage being  made  difficult,  so  far  as  \}!\q process 
is  concerned ;  but  easy  so  far  as  the  grounds 


144  Will  the  Home  Survive 

are  concerned.  The  grounds  of  a  divorce  or 
dissolution  should  be  the  simple  will  of  the 
parties  interested.  They  alone  are  the  proper 
judges  of  its  sufficiency;  but  in  order  to  pre- 
vent their  will  on  so  important  a  matter  being 
formed  lightly,  the  carrying  of  their  will  into 
effect  should  demand  serious  sacrifices." 
This  is  only  saying,  so  far  as  practice  is  con- 
cerned, that  it  should  be  made  so  difficult  for 
the  individual  to  break  the  marriage  tie  that 
the  probabilities  are  he  would  not  do  it.  In 
other  words,  divorce  would  be  made  no  easier 
by  one  method  than  by  the  other. 

The  fundamental  defect  of  this  entire  atti- 
tude towards  marriage  is  that  it  is  too  narrow. 
Marriage  is  fundamentally  a  moral  and  spirit- 
ual relationship,  but  it  is  one  which  involves 
more  than  the  mere  happiness  between  man 
and  woman.  The  conception  of  the  individ- 
ualist may  be  stated  in  the  form  of  a  syllo- 
gism :  The  end  of  marriage  is  the  happiness  of 
the  two  individuals  concerned  ;  lack  of  spirit- 
ual affinity  destroys  this  happiness  ;  therefore 
where  spiritual  affinity  is  absent,   the  end  of 


The  Fa7tiily  in  Modertt  Fiction       145 

marriage  being  destroyed,  give  men  and  women 
their  freedom.  The  weakness  of  the  syllo- 
gism is  in  the  first  premise.  The  end  of  mar- 
riage is  happiness  but  not  merely  the  happi- 
ness of  the  two  individuals  first  involved.  The 
happiness  of  their  children  and  of  the  state 
must  be  considered,  the  happiness  of  all  in 
any  way  concerned. 

Marriage,  which  is  the  result  of  mere  phys- 
ical desire,  is  nothing  more  than  polite  adultery, 
and  the  marriage  which  is  nothing  more  than 
pleasing  companionship  between  two  con- 
genial spirits  is  a  selfish  thwarting  of  nature's 
purpose.  The  child  is  involved  in  the  normal 
marriage  relationship  and  its  happiness  must 
be  considered  as  well  as  the  happiness  of  the 
two  individuals  who  are  responsible  for  its  ex- 
istence. The  child,  however,  has  never  re- 
ceived his  just  consideration.  Divorce  is 
granted  in  nearly  every  state  of  our  Union 
without  any  thought  for  the  child.  If  he 
enters  at  all  into  the  matter,  it  is  as  an  after  con- 
sideration. He  has  been  treated  as  of  abso- 
lutely no  importance,  his  welfare  and  happiness 


146  Will  the  Home  Survive 

have  never  been  considered.  The  effect  of 
the  breaking  of  the  family  traditions  and  the 
loss  which  this  brings  to  the  child,  the  depri- 
vation which  he  must  suffer  in  his  education 
through  the  loss  of  the  influence  of  one  of  his 
parents,  the  moral  effect  of  the  breaking  of 
the  family  ties — these  have  never  entered. into 
the  moral  and  legal  aspects  of  the  question  of 
divorce  as  they  should  have  done.  The  hap- 
piness of  the  child  has  been  ignored  in  the  ef- 
fort to  give  happiness  to  the  father  and  mother. 
But  the  child  must  have  his  dues.  In  any  future 
readjustment  of  family  life  he  must  be  re- 
garded as  the  chief  factor. 

The  highest  welfare  of  the  child  cannot  be 
secured  outside  the  family.  Institutional  life, 
however  well  managed,  must  be  mechanical, 
and  it  is  easy  for  any  authority  which  does  not 
spring  from  the  love  of  parents  to  become 
tyrannical.  It  is  at  this  point  that  any  social- 
istic scheme,  by  which  the  child  would  be 
given  to  the  care  of  the  state,  breaks  down. 
The  child  out  of  the  home,  presided  over  by 
father  and  mother,  and  apart  from  the  atmos 


The  Family  in  Modern  Fiction      147 

phere   of  parental   love,   can    never    develop 
normally. 

Again,  the  individualist  forgets  that  mar- 
riage has  a  social  significance  as  well  as  a 
meaning  for  the  individuals  involved.  The 
complaint  he  has  raised  is  that  the  family  is 
not  always  congenial,  that  it  suppresses  human 
nature,  that  it  limits  and  narrows  the  individ- 
ual, hence  man  must  have  the  privilege  of  es- 
caping from  the  tyranny  of  the  family  and  go- 
ing into  a  larger  world.  But  this  is  precisely 
the  thing  he  would  not  do.  Escaping  from 
the  family  he  would  go  into  a  narrower  world, 
an  unsocial  world.  Consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously all  these  writers  are  pleading  for  man's 
escape  from  society,  for  the  privilege  of  man 
to  live  in  a  little  world,  a  world  no  larger  than 
his  individual  comforts. 

Chesterton  says  :  "  It  is  the  whole  effort  of 
the  typically  modern  person  to  escape  from 
the  street  in  which  he  lives.  First  he  invents 
modern  hygiene  and  goes  to  Margate.  Then 
he  invents  modern  culture  and  goes  to  Flor- 
ence.    Then  he  invents  modern  imperialism 


148  Will  the  Home  Survive 

and  goes  to  Timbuctoo.  He  goes  to  the 
fantastic  borders  of  the  earth.  He  pretends  to 
shoot  tigers.  He  almost  rides  on  a  camel. 
And  in  this  he  is  essentially  fleeing  from  the 
street  in  which  he  was  born  ;  and  of  this  flight 
he  is  always  ready  with  his  own  explanation. 
He  says  he  is  fleeing  from  the  street  because 
it  is  dull ;  he  is  lying.  He  is  really  fleeing 
from  the  street  because  it  is  a  great  deal  too 
exciting.  It  is  exciting  because  it  is  exacting ; 
it  is  exacting  because  it  is  alive. 

"  He  can  visit  Venice  because  the  Venetians 
are  only  Venetians ;  the  people  in  his  own 
street  are  men.  He  can  stare  at  the  Chinese 
because  for  him  the  Chinese  are  a  passive 
thing  to  be  stared  at ;  but  if  he  stares  at  the 
old  woman  in  the  next  garden  she  becomes 
active.  He  is  forced  to  flee,  in  short,  from 
the  too  stimulating  society  of  his  equals — of 
free  men,  perverse,  personal,  deliberately  dif- 
ferent from  himself."  He  flees  not  because  he 
desires  to  be  more  social  but  because  he  de- 
sires to  be  unsocial,  individualistic.  If  he 
wants  to  live  in  a  large  world,  a  real  world 


The  Family  in  Modern  Fiction      149 

where  he  can  achieve  large  results,  he  must 
remain  in  his  place  of  business.  It  is  there, 
brushing  against  other  men,  entering  into  the 
conflict  with  them,  that  he  really  enters  into  a 
large  world  and  attains  a  rich  personality. 

For  the  same  reasons  it  is  a  good  thing  for 
a  man  to  be  in  a  family.  It  is  a  good  thing 
for  a  man  to  be  in  a  family  for  the  same  rea- 
son that  it  is  a  good  thing  for  a  man  to  be 
besieged  in  a  city.  The  critics  of  the  family 
object  to  the  institution  because  it  is  not 
always  congenial.  It  is  because  it  is  not  al- 
ways congenial  that  it  is  a  good  institution. 
It  is  sometimes  defended  because  it  is  a  peace- 
ful and  pleasant  retreat  for  the  weary  soul,  but 
Chesterton  defends  it  because  it  is  not  always 
peaceful  and  pleasant.  "  It  is  wholesome  pre- 
cisely because  it  contains  so  many  divergencies 
and  varieties.  It  is,  as  the  sentimentalist  says, 
like  a  little  kingdom,  and  like  most  other  little 
kingdoms,  is  generally  in  a  state  of  something 
resembling  anarchy.  It  is  exactly  because 
our  brother  George  is  not  interested  in  our 
religious  difficulties,  but  is  interested  in  the 


150  Will  the  Home  Survive 

Trocadero  Restaurant,  that  the  family  has 
some  of  the  bracing  quahties  of  the  Common- 
wealth. It  is  precisely  because  our  Uncle 
Henry  does  not  approve  of  the  theatrical  am- 
bitions of  our  sister  Sarah  that  the  family  is 
like  humanity.  The  man  and  woman  who, 
for  good  reasons  and  bad,  revolt  against  the 
family,  are,  for  good  reasons  and  bad,  simply 
revolting  against  mankind.  Papa  is  excitable, 
like  mankind.  Our  younger  brother  is  mis- 
chievous, like  mankind.  Grandpapa  is  stupid, 
like  the  world  ;  he  is  old,  like  the  w^orld." 

Those  who  step  out  of  this  social  environ- 
ment of  the  family  step  out  of  humanity  into 
a  narrower  world.  This  is  where  they  are 
deceived.  Thinking  that  they  are  stepping 
into  a  larger  world,  they  are  really  entering  a 
world  no  larger  than  the  smallness  of  their 
selfish  and  unsocial  desires.  Men  refuse  to 
marry  because  they  declare  that  they  want  the 
freedom  of  the  larger  world.  Women  refuse 
to  bear  children  because  they  do  not  want  to 
become  narrow.  Both  are  deceiving  them- 
selves  by  a  certain  conceit  which  has  been 


The  Family  in  Modem  Fiction      151 

attached  to  these  words.  If  they  could  look 
behind  the  words  they  would  soon  discover 
that  they  are  living  in  the  narrowest  of  all 
possible  worlds,  a  world  just  as  large  as  their 
individual  happiness  and  no  larger.  The  self 
that  can  be  realized  only  in  social  conditions, 
the  real  superman,  who  is  grown  not  in  arti- 
ficial conditions  but  only  in  the  conflict  with 
the  uncongenial  environment  of  men,  is  the 
self  which  these  individualistic  pleasure- 
mongers  have  never  understood. 

The  family  with  its  limitations,  its  uncon- 
genial elements,  is  the  best  school  yet  con- 
ceived for  the  education  of  the  citizen  for  the 
state.  There  he  learns  to  adjust  his  will  to 
other  wills  that  he  may  live  in  peace  and  har- 
mony, and  it  is  inconceivable  how  man  could 
go  into  the  world  of  industry,  politics,  and  the 
professions,  and  adjust  himself  peaceably  and 
honorably  to  his  fellow  men  without  the  earlier 
training  and  discipline  in  the  family.  It  is  the 
small  social  unit  where  all  the  essential  ele- 
ments of  society  exist,  and  without  its  disci- 
pline man  would  be  launched  upon  a  stormy 


152  Will  the  Home  Survive 

sea  without  the  knowledge  or  the  instruments 
of  navigation. 

Thus  we  discover  that  while  the  end  of 
marriage  is  happiness,  marriage  involves  vastly 
more  that  the  happiness  of  one  man  and 
one  woman.  It  involves  the  happiness  of 
the  child  and  the  well-being  of  the  state,  and 
no  dissolution  of  the  relationship  should  be 
permitted  which  does  not  consider  carefully 
the  bearing  of  this  dissolution  on  the  child 
and  the  state. 

Before  we  follow  Grant  and  the  school  of 
individualists,  we  must  stop  to  consider  one 
other  weakness  in  their  position.  If  a  man's 
observation  has  been  at  all  wide  in  respect  to 
this  question,  he  has  seen  many  men  and 
women  who  at  one  period  of  their  married 
life  were  unhappy.  It  seemed  as  though  all 
affection  had  left  the  home.  They  were  un- 
congenial and  they  thought  seriously  of 
separating,  but  when  they  faced  the  serious- 
ness of  divorce  and  the  difficulty  of  securing 
divorce,  they  hesitated.  As  the  months 
passed  their  differences  were  healed;  harmony 


The  Faviily  in  Modem  Fiction      153 

was  restored  in  the  household,  and  at  last  they 
lived  happy  and  useful  lives  together.  This 
is  not  a  rare  but  a  common  occurrence,  an 
occurrence  which  we  believe  would  be  much 
less  common  if  divorce  were  granted  on  the 
simple  ground  of  incompatibility. 

Grant's  position  that  the  state  should  grant 
divorce  on  the  ground  of  incompatibility  is  as 
destructive  of  society  as  the  arbitrary  law  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church  is  cruel  to  the 
individual.  Man  is  not  so  far  removed  from 
polygamy  as  woman.  He  does  not  find  it  so 
difficult  to  put  away  one  companion  and  take 
another  as  does  the  bearer  of  his  children. 
The  instincts  of  home  are  not  so  strong  with 
him  and  he  will  not  mourn  when,  a  la  Nora, 
his  wife  leaves  him,  as  the  woman  will  mourn 
when  her  husband  leaves  her  in  the  same  way. 
Women  and  children  must  be  protected  in 
some  way  from  the  polygamous  instincts 
which  are  still  strong  in  many  men.  Without 
such  protection  women  would  be  helpless, 
children  would  suffer,  homes  would  be  built 
upon  sand,  and  society  would  be  wrecked. 


154  Will  the  Home  Survive 

Mrs.  John  Van  Vorst,  in  The  Issues  of  Life, 
has  made  a  strong  argument  against  this  ex- 
treme type  of  individuaUsm.  "  The  basis  of 
the  family,"  she  says,  "  is  love — love  for 
others ;  not  individualism  but  sacrifice ;  de- 
votion not  to  self,  but  to  the  interests  of  a 
group."  Society  cannot  reap  the  highest  re- 
sults from  man  and  woman  struggling  sepa- 
rately for  self-development,  "  each  generation 
working  for  itself,  but  man  and  woman  side 
by  side  toiling  in  union  for  the  generation  to 
come." 

The  enemy  of  the  home  of  America,  as  she 
conceives  it,  is  an  extreme  individualism. 
The  vast  resources  of  the  country,  which  en- 
able many  men  to  reach  positions  of  sudden 
importance,  emphasize  this  as  the  end  of  ex- 
istence. Each  man  is  tempted  to  live  for 
this,  so  that  the  family  and  the  larger  interests 
of  society  are  excluded  as  hindrances  to  his 
development.  It  is  this  individualism  that  de- 
termines Mary  Evans'  conception  of  marriage, 
a  college  graduate  who  has  more  knowledge 
than  humanity.      She  says :    "  Neither  do  I 


The  Family  in  Modern  Fiction      155 

ever  expect  to  marry — at  least,  not  in  the  way 
people  marry  to-day.  I  could  imagine,  per- 
haps some  time  when  I  am  much  older,  taking 
a  companion  who  would  be  willing  to  work 
by  my  side,  to  be  my  friend,  on  condition  that 
he  leave  me  absolute  freedom  to  develop  my 
individuality  —  that  I  remain  independent, 
body  and  soul,  as  I  am  now ! "  She  would 
be  her  husband's  equal  as  a  breadwinner,  as 
well  as  physically  and  mentally.  The  race 
would  perpetuate  itself  by  the  "  occasional 
and  dehberate  mating  of  two  perfect  types." 
But  it  was  this  unnatural  individualism  that 
left  her  real  nature  starved  and  she  finally 
tried  to  feed  her  woman's  heart  upon  the 
affections  of  an  Irishman,  in  every  way  her 
inferior.  It  was  the  same  individualism  that 
led  Martha  to  suicide,  writing  this  note  to 
Madeleine  just  before  she  put  the  pistol  to  her 
brain :  "  I  leave  this  as  a  farewell  to  you, 
Madeleine.  You  have  a  husband  and  chil- 
dren who  love  you  and  depend  upon  you. 
You  have  found  your  destiny.  Do  not  ever 
be  tempted   from  it.     I   have   missed   mine. 


156  Will  the  Home  Survive 

That  is  why  I  am  putting  an  end  to  it  all." 
Mrs.  Penfold,  who  wanted  to  lead  her  own 
life  unhampered,  refused  to  bear  children. 
With  children,  her  life,  as  she  conceived  it, 
would  be  so  tied  down  to  the  nursery  that  she 
could  not  entertain  friends  or  be  a  companion 
to  her  husband.  She  could  have  no  more 
individuality,  no  more  chance  to  develop  and 
study.  Furthermore,  while  she  had  a  com- 
fortable income  she  had  not  enough  to  pro- 
vide for  a  family.  It  was  well  enough  for  the 
extremely  poor  to  have  large  families  because 
they  are  only  half  civilized ;  hence  their  de- 
sires are  so  small  that  they  have  no  great 
obligations.  But  as  soon  as  one  gets  money 
and  seeks  culture,  leisure,  beauty,  and  luxury, 
"  you  simply  cannot  have  a  lot  of  children." 
In  spite,  however,  of  her  arguments,  she  finds 
herself  on  the  way  to  motherhood  and  she 
rushes  to  her  physician  for  relief,  only  to  find 
that  he  will  not  assist  her.  Instead  of  physical 
aid  he  has  a  moral  homily  to  deliver.  "  You 
speak  of  individual  development,"  he  says. 
"  Look  at  the  wrecks  with  which  society  is 


The  Fa^nily  in  Modern  Fiction      157 

strewn  from  this  fatal  shoal.  All  the  strange 
ills,  which  range  from  nervous  prostration  to 
insanity,  from  the  misery  of  the  soul  known 
as  restlessness,  to  the  destruction  of  the  body 
known  as  suicide,  every  one  of  them  so  char- 
acteristic of  modern  women,  have  a  common 
cause.  Our  American  women  are  paying  for 
their  transgression,  their  own  will  and  desire 
for  self-development,  for  sterility.  I  see  a 
whole  generation  passing  like  driftwood.  .  .  . 
Without  natural  affections  to  develop  and 
mature  them,  without  the  fruit  which  gives 
meaning  to  the  flower,  they  wither  before  they 
are  half-blown,  and  they  fade  before  their 
blossoming  time  has  come.  How  can  you 
expect  them,  how  can  you  expect  yourself  to 
have  any  peace  of  mind  until  you  clearly  un- 
derstand that  there  is  not  a  creature  upon 
earth,  not  even  the  American  woman  of  the 
twentieth  century,  who  has  been  put  here  free 
of  natural  duties,  to  live  a  purely  egotistical 
existence  at  the  expense  of  others  ?  "  Even 
if  she  would  not  heed  the  moral  law,  nature 
is  against  the  course  she  seeks.     The  destruc- 


158  Will  the  Home  Survive 

tion  of  life  is  a  crime.  "To  extinguish  one 
of  those  lamps  is  to  be  in  open  rebellion 
against  God — against  the  Creator  who  has 
made  the  world.  It  is  to  set  one's  will  con- 
trary to  the  course  of  existence.  A  priest 
would  even  tell  you  that  such  a  sin  deprives 
him  who  commits  it  from  his  chances  of 
Paradise.  I  am  not  a  priest.  I  am  a  scientist, 
and  I  need  no  other  than  a  scientific  proof  to 
affirm  that  Nature  does  not  wait  for  another 
world  to  curse  the  woman  who  goes  against 
her  destiny.  She  brands  her  here  upon 
earth."  Mrs.  Penfold,  however,  will  not  heed 
her  physician.  She  transgresses  nature  and 
spends  as  a  result  a  wretched  life,  morally  and 
physically  an  invalid. 

Mrs.  Van  Vorst  does  not  use  man  as  the 
white  saint  for  the  background,  to  set  off  the 
darkness  of  her  women  who  turn  away  from 
the  normal  home  in  pursuit  of  happiness,  but 
rather  lays  the  blame  for  woman's  failure  in 
the  fulfilment  of  her  destiny  to  man.  "  Man 
is  the  lord  of  creation,"  says  the  doctor,  "  and 
the  sort  of  woman   or  women   he  wants  will 


The  Family  in  Modern  Fiction      159 

prevail  as  types  in  the  land  he  inhabits,"  The 
enemy  of  the  American  wife  is  the  American 
man.  He  gives  no  time  to  his  home  and  it  is 
natural  that  she  should  find  her  interest  out- 
side her  household.  He  gives  his  life  either  to 
business  or  to  science,  "  She  tries  to  make 
the  most  of  the  situation  by  mimicking  her 
rivals.  The  business  man's  wife  is  capricious 
and  a  spendthrift;  the  scientist's  wife  is  a 
pedant.  No  children,  no  domestic  duties, 
overstrained  mind  in  the  one ;  passion  for 
luxury  in  the  other  ;  perverted,  both  of  them, 
and  sure  to  end  up  at  a  rest-cure  or  under  the 
surgeon's  knife.  You  can't  blame  them  for 
their  depravity.  It's  not  their  fault.  It  is  the 
fault  of  the  man."  "  The  American  man  of 
to-day  wants  as  companion  a  creature  who 
corresponds  in  no  way  to  what  nature  intended 
that  woman  should  be." 

In  contrast  to  this  idea  of  the  man  and 
woman  each  seeking  individual  happiness,  is 
the  home  of  Philip  and  Madeleine,  blessed 
with  children,  happy  in  its  harmony,  each  one 
finding  joy   in   living    for   the  other.     "  The 


l6o  Will  the  Home  Survive 

natural  meaning  of  existence  is  the  union  of 
man  and  woman,  that  the  woman  may  bear 
children,  while  the  man  defends  the  home. 
The  moment  either  one  diverges  from  this 
destiny  harmony  is  destroyed." 

The  Awakcimig  of  Helena  Richie  by  Mar- 
garet Deland  is  an  argument  for  the  social  as- 
pects of  duty  as  over  against  a  bald  individ- 
ualism whose  end  is  happiness.  Helena 
Richie  was  a  woman  who  thought  of  nothing 
except  happiness.  She  had  never  thought  of 
being  good  or  bad,  she  just  wanted  to  be 
happy.  She  married  to  find  happiness,  and 
because  she  did  not  find  it  she  deserted  her 
husband  to  live  with  another  man,  not  be- 
cause she  wanted  to  be  bad,  but  to  be 
happy.  In  doing  this  she  never  once 
thought  of  the  effect  of  her  act  upon  so- 
ciety. That  marriage  is  what  makes  us  civi- 
lized, and  that  he  who  injures  this  institution 
injures  society;  that  if  every  dissatisfied  wife 
followed  her  example  decent  life  could  not  go 
on,  had  never  entered  her  mind.  The  sense  of 
social   responsibility  in  her  was  drowned  in 


The  Family  in  Modern  Fiction      i6i 

selfishness.  Failing  to  find  happiness  in  her 
new  venture  she  took  a  little  boy.  She  did 
this  with  no  thought  of  what  influence  she 
might  exert  over  him,  but  simply  that  he 
might  add  to  her  happiness.  Finally  one  of 
her  admirers,  whom  she  had  rejected,  took  his 
own  life  and  as  she  heard  the  pistol  shot  and 
thought  upon  the  tragic  deed,  there  came  to 
her  for  the  first  time  the  thought  that  the  end 
of  life  is  more  than  happiness.  In  the  midst  of 
this  elemental  tumult  of  her  nature  she  had  the 
first  dim  glimpse  of  her  responsibility.  Her 
soul  had  never  been  pierced  by  the  "  disturb- 
ing light  of  any  heavenly  vision  declaring  that 
when  personal  happiness  conflicts  with  any 
great  human  ideal,  the  right  to  claim  such 
happiness  is  as  nothing  compared  to  the  priv- 
ilege of  resigning  it."  The  crack  of  the  pistol 
revealed  to  her  for  the  first  time  the  relation 
of  her  life  to  other  lives  and  destroyed  all  her 
excuses  for  living  simply  to  seek  happiness. 
For  the  first  time  she  saw  her  selfishness  naked 
before  her  eyes.  This  revelation  of  social  re- 
sponsibility was  so  intense,  and  the  upheaval 


1 62  Will  the  Home  Survive 

of  her  nature  was  so  sudden,  that  she  sought 
shelter  in  obedience  to  the  letter  of  the  law, 
marriage.  "  To  marry  her  fellow  outlaw 
seemed  to  promise  both  shelter  and  stability, 
for  in  her  confusion  she  mistook  marriage  for 
morality."  She  had  not  discovered  her  fun- 
damental sin.  She  would  adopt  a  mere  form,  a 
legal  form,  and  in  that  satisfy  her  conscience. 
What  she  needed  was  a  proper  understanding 
of  the  moral  order  and  her  relation  to  it.  The 
desire  to  be  happy  must  be  modified  by  a 
sense  of  duty,  of  responsibility  for  other  lives. 
Selfishness  must  be  killed  ;  her  soul  must  be 
regenerated,  so  that  she  could  love  her  neigh- 
bor as  well  as  herself.  Only  when  this  fact 
dawned  upon  her  was  her  life  awakened  so 
that  she  could  fulfil  her  task  in  the  social 
order. 

"  We  have  reached  a  position  where  it  must 
be  clear  that  the  reason  for  the  permanence  of 
the  family  is  to  be  found  neither  in  the  con- 
ception of  marriage  as  a  sacrament,  nor  in  the 
changeful  whims  of  the  individual  will,  but  in 
the  demands  of  nature  and  of  society.     The 


The  Family  in  Modern  Fiction      163 

appearance  of  the  infant  is  the  key  which 
locks  the  family  together  as  a  permanent  in- 
stitution ;  an  institution  which  is  not  to  be 
unlocked  by  the  skeleton  keys  manufactured 
by  selfishness.  Nature  has  so  constructed  the 
cat  that  the  care  of  its  offspring  may  be  com- 
pleted in  a  few  days,  but  the  care  and  de- 
velopment of  the  human  infant  requires  the 
major  part  of  a  parent's  life.  Its  nurture,  the 
forming  and  completing  of  its  ideals,  its  moral 
and  intellectual  training,  are  all  conditioned 
upon  the  permanence  of  the  home.  The  cul- 
mination of  the  evolutionary  process  is  the 
creation  of  an  infant  dependent  upon  its 
parents  for  its  highest  development.  To  at- 
tempt to  destroy  this  home  is  to  defy  the 
wisdom  of  nature's  process. 

Jesus  found  the  reason  for  the  permanence 
of  the  family,  not  in  any  arbitrary  command 
of  His  own,  but  in  nature.  When  He  was 
asked  if  it  was  lawful  for  a  man  to  put  away 
his  wife  for  any  cause,  He  replied :  "  Have  ye 
not  read  that  He  which  made  them  from  the 
beginning    made    them   male   and   female  ? " 


164  Will  the  Home  Survive 

They  have  been  so  created  that  they  should 
be  one.  It  was  the  purpose  of  nature  that 
man  should  leave  his  father  and  mother  and 
cleave  to  his  wife  and  the  two  should  become 
one  flesh.  Therefore  let  not  the  purpose  of 
nature  be  thwarted  by  the  devices  of  men. 
What  God  hath  joined  together  let  no  man 
put  asunder.  In  the  eagerness  of  our  debate 
over  the  question  of  whether  Jesus  permitted 
divorce,  and  the  remarriage  of  divorced  peo- 
ple, we  have  forgotten  to  emphasize  His  idea 
of  why  the  family  existed,  of  the  purpose  in 
its  creation,  of  the  reason  for  its  permanence. 
Jesus  is  not  giving  a  law  of  divorce  so  much 
as  He  is  protesting  against  anything  which 
would  make  men  lose  sight  of  the  fundamental 
arrangement  of  which  marriage  is  an  outcome. 
Marriage  is  the  unit  of  nature  and  of  civiliza- 
tion, and  is  not  to  be  broken  by  the  lustful 
desires  of  men.  The  operation  of  the  entire 
natural  process  and  the  very  structure  of  so- 
ciety work  against  the  tendency  to  loosen  the 
marriage  tie.  The  demands  of  childhood,  the 
training  of  the  child  in  proper  conceptions  of 


The  Family  in  Modern  Fiction      165 

home  life,  the  preservation  of  the  traditions  of 
family  life,  the  purity  of  society,  all  call  for  the 
permanence  of  this  institution,  and  hence 
make  a  demand  upon  the  individual  to  sacri- 
fice some  of  his  own  happiness  for  the  good  of 
others,  finding  his  joy  in  this  very  sacrifice. 

A  class  of  novelists  has  arisen  who  are  try- 
ing to  find  the  basis  of  marriage  in  neither  the 
traditional  view  of  marriage  as  a  sacrament, 
nor  in  the  changeful  whims  of  the  individual 
will,  but  in  nature.  To  this  class  belong  such 
men  as  Spearman  in  Doctor  Byrsoit,  d,nd  H.  A. 
Mitchell  Keays  in  He  That  Eateth  Bread  With 
Me.  Keays  treats  the  subject  from  the  high- 
est moral  and  spiritual  standpoint.  He  finds 
the  basis  of  the  family  in  the  moral  and  spir- 
itual nature  of  man,  as  well  as  in  the  physical 
nature,  and  his  complaint  is  against  both 
church  and  state  for  falling  below  this  lofty 
ideal. 

Katharine  was  married  to  Clifford.  They 
had  one  son  and  were  happy  in  their  home. 
Later  Chfford  fell  in  love  with  another  woman, 
and  gaining  a  divorce  from  Katharine,  married 


1 66  Will  the  Home  Survive 

Isabel.  Katharine  believed  that  her  marriage 
had  been  until  death  and  her  soul  brought  a 
terrible  indictment  against  the  church  which 
would  not  refuse  to  sanctify  scandal  within  its 
holy  precincts.  She  could  not  forget  how  her 
pastor  only  a  few  years  before  "  had  married 
an  innocent  girl  to  a  notorious  and  gilded 
divorce  with  all  the  pomp  and  benediction  at 
his  disposal.  His  congregation  had  mur- 
mured, but  he  conducted  his  defense  so 
adroitly  that  the  committee  appointed  to 
rebuke  joined  forces  with  him  and  calmed  the 
tumult  by  dweUing  upon  the  spiritually  reas- 
suring fact  that  the  ecclesiastical  finances  had 
never  been  in  so  flourishing  a  condition  be- 
fore." Such  a  church  could  no  longer  hold 
her  respect.  The  church  might  meet  in  sol- 
emn conclave  and  discuss  why  it  had  lost  its 
hold  upon  the  world,  but  so  long  as  its  honor 
could  be  bought  and  sold  the  world  would 
pass  it  by.  Airlie  says  :  "  That '  until  death  ' 
is  a  delusion,  dear,  and  the  church  knows  it. 
A  minister  married  you  to  him.  A  minister 
married  him  to  her.     A  minister  will  marry 


The  Family  in  Modern  Fiction      167 

you  to  him  again  if  you  wish.  The  church 
doesn't  worry  much  about  the  sacredness  of 
marriage."  But  this  does  not  move  Katharine 
from  her  position.  The  church  may  sell  itself 
for  a  mess  of  pottage ;  she  will  be  true  to  her 
marriage  vows. 

She  also  brings  an  indictment  against  the 
state  which  makes  it  easy  for  her  husband  to 
break  the  vow  he  had  made  to  her.  It  is  the 
very  divorce-made-easy  system,  legalized  by 
the  state,  she  thinks,  which  undermines  the 
moral  nature  of  men  and  blinds  them  to  the 
enormity  of  this  offense  against  the  family. 
If  the  state  had  made  divorce  less  easy,  Clif- 
ford would  have  found  Isabel's  charms  less 
captivating.  Though  church  and  state  sanc- 
tion her  husband's  sin,  she  holds  to  the  in- 
violability of  marriage.  She  has  been  true  to 
her  vow  though  he  has  not  been  true  to  his 
and  her  marriage  remains  intact.  The  law 
cannot  destroy  the  natural  relation  of  mother 
and  child,  or  father  and  child  ;  how  can  it  de- 
stroy the  natural  relation  of  husband  and  wife, 
who  have  brought  the  child  into  the  world  ? 


1 68  Will  the  Home  Survive 

At  best  the  law  of  the  state  "  by  which 
we  try  to  govern  others  must  always  be  lower 
than  the  laws  by  which  we  govern  ourselves." 
There  is  a  higher  law,  the  inner  law  of  con- 
science, which  declares  against  the  righteous- 
ness of  such  action,  and  if  the  law  of  the 
state,  which  can  only  keep  men  from  being 
bad,  but  can  never  make  them  good,  permits 
divorce,  the  righteous  law  of  the  soul  rises 
against  it.  When  Katharine  meets  Isabel,  she 
declares  :  "  You  have  not  taken  my  husband 
from  me.  You  never  can.  He  may  be  yours 
legally — he  never  can  be  morally,  and  you 
know  it.  You  will  try  to  forget  me  and  my 
little  child — you  will  never  forget  us.  Neither 
will  he.  There  will  come  a  time  when,  look- 
ing at  you,  he  will  think  only  of  me,  the  wife." 
The  church  or  the  state  can  never  take  her 
husband  from  her :  he  is  her  own  by  nature 
and  this  fundamental  relationship  cannot  be 
dissolved  by  any  legal  process. 

To  this  position  Katharine  is  true  to  the 
end.  Others  seek  her  hand,  but  she  refuses. 
Finally  Clifford  grows  weary  of  the  cunning 


The  Family  in  Modern  Fiction      169 

Isabel  and  his  love  for  his  child  would  draw 
him  back  to  Katharine.  She  seems  to  him  the 
embodiment  of  purity  and  sweetness.  She  is 
his  religion,  his  good  angel.  His  own  nature 
has  become  pure  through  her  goodness  and 
he  must  have  her  back.  At  first  she  wavers 
and  consents,  but  then  arises  the  question, 
What  right  has  Isabel  ?  Has  Katharine  any 
right  to  separate  this  man  and  this  woman 
whose  union  the  law  has  legalized  ?  She 
finally  decides  that  she  has  not  and  writes 
Clifford :  "  This  morning  I  felt  that  I  could 
forget  Isabel — that  I  would  forget  her.  I 
thought  that  we,  you  and  I  together  again, 
could  blot  that  all  out.  We  never  could. 
Isabel  belongs  to  us — to  you  and  to  me — be- 
cause I  love  you." 

Isabel  is  killed  by  a  train  and  Clifford  suf- 
fers agonies  of  soul  because  of  his  mistake. 
He  becomes,  however,  through  the  suffering 
of  Katharine,  a  new  man.  She  has  been  his 
redeemer.  The  bitterness  of  her  self-abnega- 
tion, the  humiliation  of  her  despised  love,  did 
for  him  what  the  cross  has  wrought  for  the 


lyo  Will  the  Home  Survive 

race.  Her  faith,  her  patience,  her  love,  lifted 
him  above  the  recklessness  of  passion  and  no 
evil  force  of  the  universe  was  strong  enough  to 
keep  them  apart. 

This  conception  of  marriage  may  be  made 
as  arbitrary  and  merciless  as  the  Roman 
Catholic  doctrine  of  marriage  and  divorce.  So 
may  any  other  conception  when  it  is  crystallized 
into  fixed  and  unalterable  law.  Humanity  is 
fluid  and  must  be  ruled  ultimately  by  flexible 
spiritual  conceptions  rather  than  by  static 
legislation.  But  this  conception  of  marriage, 
in  moral  and  spiritual  elevation,  certainly  has 
the  advantage  over  both  that  of  the  sacramen- 
talist  and  that  of  the  individualist.  It  evokes 
a  favorable  response  from  our  better  natures. 
Our  experience  declares  that  it  is  true.  It 
satisfies  our  reason  because  it  gives  permanence 
to  the  family  and  hence  to  the  social  structure. 


VII 

SOCIALISM  AND  THE  FAMILY 

There  has  been  much  misrepresentation 
concerning  the  attitude  of  socialism  towards 
the  family,  for  which  the  socialist  has  been 
obliged  to  suffer.  Certain  types  of  socialism 
do  not  necessarily  involve  any  change  in  the 
form  of  the  institution  of  the  family,  and  there 
are  sincere  socialists  who  are  working  for  a 
higher  and  purer  form  of  family  hfe  as  ear- 
nestly as  any  others.  What  many  socialists  do 
see  is  the  destruction  of  the  family  by  the 
present  industrial  order.  They  point  to  the 
disintegration  of  the  family  caused  by  the 
separation  of  parents,  necessitated  by  economic 
conditions  ;  to  the  "  she-towns  "  of  New  Eng- 
land, and  the  mining  centres  of  the  West, 
where  men  are  massed  in  large  numbers  ;  to 
the  divorce  evil  and  prostitution — all  a  part  of 
capitalistic   society,  and   they   prophesy   that 

171 


172  Will  the  Home  Survive 

unless  there  are  great  changes  in  the  indus- 
trial order  the  present  institution  of  the  family 
is  doomed  to  decay.  They  are  giving  them- 
selves to  the  improvement  of  the  social  order, 
that  family  life  may  be  more  stable  and  love 
may  be  neither  bought  nor  sold. 

But  while  socialism,  in  itself,  does  not 
necessarily  involve  any  change  in  the  essen- 
tial form  of  the  family,  it  is  nevertheless  true 
that  some  of  the  strongest  attacks  upon  the 
family  have  come  from  socialistic  writers, 
especially  from  those  socialists  who  hold  a 
materialistic  interpretation  of  history,  and  who 
see  the  present  form  of  the  family  as  a  product 
of  the  present  economic  system. 

The  great  authority  on  the  family  under  the 
socialistic  scheme  is  August  Bebel,  the  grand 
old  leader  of  the  Social  Democrats  of  Ger- 
many, and  some  knowledge  of  his  book, 
Wome7i  Undey  Socialism,  is  essential  to  any 
discussion  of  this  subject.  We  do  not  claim 
for  him  complete  originality.  He  is  indebted 
to  the  older  socialists  for  his  leading  principles 
concerning  the  family,  but  to  him  belongs  the 


Socialism  and  the  Family  173 

credit  of  first  treating  the  subject  in  a  thorough 
and  scientific  way.  Accordingly,  almost  all 
socialists  turn  to  his  book  as  the  chief 
authority  on  the  woman  question. 

He  regards  the  family  as  part  of  the  present 
"  bourgeois  society,"  and  he  finds  no  hope  for 
woman's  emancipation  until  she  is  given  in-  }\^^ 
dustrial  equality  and  perfect  freedom  with 
man,  things  impossible  under  the  present 
social  system. 

His  fundamental  principle  is  that  the  sex 
instinct  is  one  of  the  strongest  nature  has  given 
us,  and  that  "  its  satisfaction  is  an  actual 
necessity  for  man's  physical  and  mental 
health."  Sexual  abstinence  at  the  age  of 
maturity  affects  the  nervous  system,  as  well  as 
the  entire  organism  of  both  sexes,  often  caus- 
ing serious  disturbances  and  sometimes  lead- 
ing to  insanity  and  death.  Bebel  tries  to 
prove  this  by  citing  the  statistics  for  insanity 
and  suicide.  He  finds  in  one  State  that 
eighty-one  per  cent,  of  the  insane  were  un- 
married, while  only  seventeen  per  cent,  were 
married,  the  conjugal  status  of  two  per  cent. 


174  Will  the  Home  Survive 

being  unknown,  while  the  number  of  suicides 
between  the  ages  of  twenty-one  and  thirty- 
years  is  higher  for  females  than  for  males. 
These  statistics,  however,  have  little  or  no 
value,  as  the  causes  for  insanity  are  not  indi- 
cated. The  number  born  as  idiots  or  mentally 
weak,  the  number  of  children  who  become 
insane  before  the  period  of  adolescence,  those 
who  refrain  from  marriage  because  of  physical 
infirmities  which  later  result  in  insanity,  and 
innumerable  causes  of  insanity  outside  the  sex 
instinct,  are  not  indicated.  Hence  all  his  de- 
ductions concerning  both  suicide  and  insanity 
have  very  little  value. 

Believing,  however,  that  he  has  established 
his  contention,  he  declares  that  modern  society 
has  failed  to  meet  the  demand  for  a  natural 
life.  The  failure  to  honor  nature  has  not  been 
due  to  the  free  will  of  man,  but  to  the  obstacles 
which  society  places  in  his  way.  Under  the 
present  social  system,  with  its  moral  ideals,  it 
is  impossible  for  all  to  satisfy  their  nature. 

The  greatest  sufferer,  however,  under  this 
social  tyranny  is  the  female,  for  society  has 


Socialis})i  and  the  Family  175 

provided  for  the  male  in  the  prostitute,  a  pro- 
vision which  is  necessary  for  the  capitahstic 
world.  "  Man  ever  has  looked  upon  the  use 
of  prostitution  as  a  privilege  due  him  by  right. 
All  the  harder  and  severer  does  he  keep  guard 
and  pass  sentence  when  a  woman,  who  is  no 
prostitute,  commits  a  '  slip.'  That  woman  is 
instinct  with  the  same  impulses  as  man,  aye, 
that  at  given  periods  of  her  Hfe  (at  menstrua- 
tion) these  impulses  assert  themselves  more 
vehemently  than  at  others, — that  does  not 
trouble  him.  In  virtue  of  his  position  as 
master,  he  compels  her  to  violently  suppress 
her  most  powerful  impulses,  and  he  conditions 
both  her  character  in  society  and  her  marriage 
upon  her  chastity.  Nothing  illustrates  more 
drastically,  and  more  revoltingly,  the  depend- 
ence of  woman  upon  man  than  this  radically 
different  conception  regarding  the  gratification 
of  the  identical  natural  impulse,  and  the 
radically  different  measure  by  which  it  is 
judged," 

The  consequences  of  the  act  of  generation 
has  placed  upon  woman  the  heaviest  burden. 


176  IViH  the  Home  Survive 

Man  has  no  fear  or  responsibilities  after  the 
act  is  completed,  and  being  free  from  all 
consequences  he  has  indulged  his  passion  with 
perfect  freedom,  until  "prostitution  becomes  a 
social  institution  in  the  capitalistic  world,  the 
same  as  the  police,  standing  armies,  the 
church,  and  wage-mastership,"  and  is  re- 
garded by  our  statesmen  as  inseparable  from 
our  social  institutions. 

This  is  the  common  charge  of  sociaHsts 
against  the  present  social  order.  Thompson 
declares  that  under  the  present  social  order 
"sexual  enjoyment  becomes,  like  everything 
else  in  society,  a  matter  of  trade,  of  exchange, 
just  like  every  other  commodity,"  and  he  I 
speaks  of  the  "  mutual,  unbought,  uncom- 
manded  affection  "  under  socialism.  The  vile 
trade  of  prostitution,  he  declares,  could  not 
exist  under  sociahsm.  "  Man  has,  here,  no 
individual  wealth  more  than  woman,  with 
which  to  buy  her  person  for  the  animal  use  of 
a  few  years.  Man,  like  woman,  if  he  wish  to 
be  beloved,  must  learn  the  art  of  pleasing,  of 
benevolence,  of  deserving  love."     The  same 


Socialism  and  the  Family  177 

attitude  is  taken  by  Bax,  who  declares  that 
monogamy  and  prostitution  go  together,  as 
both  are  based  on  commercial  considerations, 
one  being  purchase  and  the  other  hire.  Both 
are  wrong  because  based  upon  a  wrong 
economic  principle.  "  Socialism  will  strike  at 
the  root  at  once  of  compulsory  monogamy 
and  of  prostitution  by  inaugurating  an  era  of 
marriage  based  on  free  choice  and  intention, 
and  characterized  by  the  absence  of  external 
coercion.  For  where  the  wish  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  marriage  relation  remains, 
there  external  compulsion  is  unnecessary ; 
where  it  is  necessary,  because  the  wish  has 
disappeared,  then  it  is  undesirable." 

Under  socialism  woman  would  have  an 
equal  chance  with  man  in  satisfying  her 
nature  and  in  seeking  happiness.  She  would 
be  socially  and  economically  independent, 
being  no  longer  the  subject  of  man  for  his 
exploitation  but  in  every  way  his  peer,  mis- 
tress of  her  lot.  "  In  the  choice  of  love,  she 
is,  like  man,  free  and  unhampered.  She 
wooes  or  is  wooed,  and  closes  the  bond  for  no 


178  Will  the  Home  Survive 

consideration  other  than  her  own  inchnations. 
Tliis  bond  is  a  private  contract,  celebrated 
without  the  intervention  of  any  functionary." 
The  satisfaction  of  the  sexual  instinct  is  a 
private  concern,  and  man  must  be  left  free 
in  his  choice,  as  in  the  satisfaction  of  any 
passion  or  appetite.  If  incompatibility  comes 
between  two  persons,  who  have  been  brought 
together  in  marriage,  socialistic  morality  de- 
mands their  separation,  for  their  relation  is 
unnatural  and  hence  immoral. 

One  of  the  finest  pictures  of  the  bliss  of 
man  and  woman  in  the  married  state  under 
socialism  is  pictured  in  Bellamy's  Looking 
Backward.  It  is  a  picture,  however,  which 
must  have  caused  his  paternal  ancestor. 
Dr.  Joseph  Bellamy,  the  distinguished  theo- 
logian and  eloquent  preacher  of  revolutionary 
days,  to  turn  in  his  grave,  if  perchance  he  is 
still  quietly  waiting  for  the  great  judgment 
day,  which  he  once  made  the  terror  of  timid 
souls.  It  is  a  picture  of  an  ideal  republic 
where  all  are  supplied  from  a  common  treasury. 
Wives  are  in  no  way  dependent  upon  their 


Socialism  and  the  Family         179 

husbands,   nor   children    upon   their   parents, 
except  for  offices  of   affection.     "  That  any 
person  should  be  dependent  for  the  means  of 
support  upon  another  would  be  shocking  to 
the  moral  sense  as  well  as  indefensible  on  any 
rational  social   theory."     Under   the  present 
social  system  women  have  to  sell  themselves, 
with  or  without  the  forms  of  marriage,  to  get 
their  living.     Men  seize  the  products  of  the 
world  and  leave  women  "  to  beg  and  wheedle 
for  their  share."     Such  infringement  of  per- 
sonal liberty  is  robbery  and  cruelty.     Woman 
is  not  able  physically  to  do  the  same  kind  of 
work  as  man.     The  heavier  work  must  be  left 
for  him,  and  at  the  time  of  child-bearing  she 
must  withdraw  from  all  work.     But  because 
her   work    is    different,   it   is   none   the   less 
valuable.     "  None  deserve  so  well  of  the  world 
as  good  parents,"  and  no  work  is  so  unselfish 
as  the  bearing  of  the  children  who  are  to  make 
the  world  when  we  are  gone.     Children,  too, 
should  be  supported  from  the  common  fund, 
for  they  in  time  will  contribute  to  the  com- 
mon wealth. 


i8o  JVill  the  Home  Survive 

When  it  is  objected  that  once  woman  is 
guaranteed  a  hvehhood,  and  is  in  no  way  de- 
pendent upon  man,  she  will  refuse  to  endure 
the  pains  of  child-birth  and  the  inconveniences 
of  carrying  the  child,  Bellamy  replies  :  "  The 
Creator  took  very  good  care  that  whatever 
other  modifications  the  dispositions  of  men 
and  women  might  take  on,  their  attraction  for 
each  other  should  remain  constant,"  But 
this,  it  appears  to  us,  is  only  a  begging  of  the 
question.  Bebel  devotes  pages  to  show  the 
wide  practice  of  abortion,  and  the  increase  of 
the  practice  in  all  the  states  of  Europe  and 
America.  He  attributes  this  to  economic 
conditions,  the  refusal  to  bear  children  in 
poverty.  His  argument,  however,  is  weak- 
ened from  the  fact  that  abortion  is  practiced 
not  by  the  poorer  classes,  where  the  pinch  of 
poverty  is  greatest,  but  by  the  upper  classes 
of  society,  by  those  whose  financial  conditions 
make  life  comparatively  easy.  This  being 
true,  if  the  socialistic  state  could  bring  such 
happiness  and  abundance  as  Bellamy  pictures, 
we  are  not  at  all  certain  that  the  Creator's 


Socialism  and  the  Family         i8i 

provisions     could    overcome    these    criminal 
tendencies. 

Bellamy  further  argues  that  the  economic 
independence  of  the  sexes  would  make  them 
perfect  equals  as  suitors.  Dr.  Leete  says  to 
the  resuscitated  nineteenth  century  derelict, 
Mr.  West :  "  In  your  time  the  fact  that 
women  were  dependent  for  support  on  men 
made  the  woman  in  reality  the  one  chiefly 
benefited  by  marriage.  .  .  .  Nothing  was 
therefore  considered  more  shocking  to  the 
proprieties  than  that  a  woman  should  betray  a 
fondness  for  a  man  before  he  had  indicated  a 
desire  to  marry  her.  Why,  we  actually  have 
in  our  libraries  books,  by  authors  of  your 
day,  written  for  no  other  purpose  than  to  dis- 
cuss the  question  whether,  under  any  con- 
ceivable circumstances,  a  woman  might,  with- 
out discredit  to  her  sex,  reveal  an  unsolicited 
love.  All  this  seems  exquisitely  absurd  to  us, 
and  yet  we  know  that,  given  your  circum- 
stances, the  problem  might  have  a  serious 
side.  When  for  a  woman  to  proffer  her  love 
to  a  man  was  in  effect  to  invite  him  to  assume 


l82  Will  the  Home  Survive 

the  burden  of  her  support,  it  is  easy  to  see 
that  pride  and  delicacy  might  well  have 
checked  the  promptings  of  the  heart."  Un- 
der the  socialistic  scheme  there  is  no  pre- 
tense of  a  concealment  of  feelings  on  the  part 
of  either  sex.  A  woman  is  as  free  to  woo  as 
the  man,  and  any  "  coquetry  would  be  as 
much  despised  in  a  girl  as  in  a  man." 

The  result  of  this  is  that  all  matches  are 
born  of  true  love.  For  the  first  time  in  his- 
tory "  the  principle  of  sexual  selection,  with 
its  tendency  to  preserve  and  transmit  the  bet- 
ter types  of  the  race,  and  let  the  inferior  types 
drop  out,  has  unhindered  operation.  The 
necessities  of  poverty,  the  need  of  having  a 
home,  no  longer  tempt  women  to  accept  as 
the  father  of  their  children  men  whom  they 
can  neither  love  nor  respect.  Wealth  and 
rank  no  longer  divert  attention  from  personal 
qualities.  The  gifts  of  person,  mind,  and 
disposition  ;  beauty,  wit,  eloquence,  kindness, 
generosity,  geniality,  courage,  are  sure  of 
transmission  to  posterity.  Each  generation  is 
sifted  through  a  little  finer  mesh  than  the  last. 


Socialism  and  the  Fainily  183 

The  attributes  that  human  nature  admires  are 
preserved ;  those  that  repel  are  left  behind. 
There  are,  of  course,  a  great  many  women 
who  with  love  must  mingle  admiration,  and 
seek  to  wed  greatly,  but  these  not  the  less 
obey  the  same  law,  for  to  wed  greatly  now  is 
not  to  marry  men  of  fortune  or  title,  but  those 
who  have  risen  above  their  fellows  by  the 
solidity  or  brilhancy  of  their  services  to 
humanity."  Thus  the  human  race  is  con- 
stantly elevated.  Women  marry  with  the 
good  of  the  race  in  view.  This  is  a  part  of 
the  ethics  of  the  new  republic.  Those  who 
cannot  acquit  themselves  in  the  world  of  life 
are  left  as  celibates.  Women  rise  "  to  the 
full  height  of  their  responsibility  as  wardens 
of  the  world  to  come." 

Bellamy  tries  to  lift  the  family  life  rather 
than  degrade  it,  and  in  a  measure  he  suc- 
ceeds, as  he  has  a  spiritualistic  rather  than  a 
materialistic  philosophy  of  history.  But  just 
at  the  point  where  he  tries  most  to  idealize 
the  family,  he  fails.  For  illustration,  his 
spirituahstic  interpretation  of  history  hinders 


184  Will  the  Home  Sttrvive 

him  from  the  elimination  of  prostitution. 
Bebel  abolishes  prostitution  by  substituting 
for  the  present  social  system  free  love.  The 
relation  of  the  sexes,  he  argues,  is  not 
moral  or  immoral,  it  is  natural.  And  in  a 
society  where  men  and  women  are  perfectly 
free  to  exercise  their  passions,  there  is  no 
call  for  prostitution.  But  so  soon  as  you 
begin  to  debar  certain  classes  from  the  mar- 
riage state  and  form  a  class  of  celibates,  for 
whatever  reason,  you  then  have  all  the 
factors  for  prostitution.  This  is  what  Bel- 
lamy does.  His  women  are  so  saintly  they 
will  marry  none  but  the  highest  and  best 
types  of  men.  Certainly  his  men  are  of  like 
tendencies.  But  this  leaves  the  undesirable 
classes  of  society,  and  those  unfit,  unmarried, 
which  means  that  even  in  the  ideal  republic 
there  are  all  the  factors  for  prostitution. 

One  of  the  most  radical  advocates  of  social- 
ism is  Grant  Allen.  In  the  Woman  Who  Did, 
Herminia  rebels  against  the  entire  social  sys- 
tem in  its  treatment  of  women.  She  declares 
that  men  have  permitted  women  to  develop  in- 


Socialism  and  the  Family  185 

tellectually,  but  socially  and  morally  they  are  as 
much  slaves  as  ever.    She  determines  to  be  ab- 
solutely free  from  man.     When  she  finds  the 
man  she  loves,  she  gives  him  her  will,  but  not 
her  hfe,  her  future,  her  individuality,  or  her 
freedom.     To  give  any  of  these  would  be  a 
treason  to  her  sex.     She  simply  gives  her  will, 
and  her  lover  must  take  her  in  free  union  or 
not  at  all.     No  marriage  ceremony  must  unite 
them,  for  that  is  an  assertion  of  man's  suprem- 
acy over  woman.     "  To  tie  her  to  him  for  life, 
it  ignores  her  individuality,  it  compels  her  to 
promise  what  no  human  heart  can  be  sure  of 
performing."     If   she   loves    a  man  at  all  it 
must  be   on   terms    of  perfect   freedom.     "  I 
can't  bind  myself  down  to  live  with  him  to  my 
shame  one  day  longer  than  I  love  him  ;  or  to 
love  him  at  all  if  I  find  him  unworthy  of  my 
purest  love,  or  unable  to  retain  it,  or  if  I  dis- 
cover some  other  more  fit  to  be  loved  by  me." 
Alan  Merrick  finally  takes  her  under  these 
conditions.     They  are  to  live  together,  outside 
of  civil  and  religious  marriage,  and  to  be  free 
to  separate  at  any  time.     But  another  ques- 


1 86  Will  the  Home  Survive 

tion  arises,  how  shall  they  live  ?  For  her  to 
go  to  his  house  would  be  a  confession  of  his 
supremacy  over  her.  She  must  live  apart 
from  him,  preserve  her  independence,  and  re- 
ceive visits  from  the  man  who  will  be  the 
father  of  her  children.  Only  thus  can  she  be 
free.  Marriage  must  not  be  allowed  to  alter 
her  position  at  all.  It  must  be  "  merely  the 
addition  to  life  of  a  new  and  very  dear  and 
natural  friendship."  She  must  even  keep  her 
maiden  name.  Nothing  is  surrendered  in  her 
marriage,  it  is  simply  another  step  taken  to- 
wards the  fulfilment  of  her  nature. 

In  The  British  Barbarians,  Grant  Allen 
goes  still  further  in  his  free-love  doctrine  and 
teaches  that  it  is  immoral  for  a  woman  to  live 
with  a  man  one  minute  after  she  has  ceased  to 
love  him.  Bertram  says  to  Freda,  after  he 
had  won  her  affection  from  her  husband,  •'  If 
you  don't  love  Monteith,  it's  your  duty  to 
him,  and  still  more  your  duty  to  yourself  and 
your  unborn  children,  at  once  to  leave  him  ; 
if  you  do  love  me,  it's  your  duty  to  me  and 
still  more  your  duty  to  yourself  and  our  un- 


Soda /ism  and  the  Family  187 

born  children,  at  once  to  cleave  to  me." 
When  her  husband  finds  them,  after  they  have 
gone  away  together,  and  accuses  his  wife  of 
adultery,  Bertram  says  :  "  Adultery  it  was,  in- 
deed, an  untruth  to  her  own  higher  and  purer 
nature,  for  this  lady  to  spend  one  night  of  her 
life  under  your  roof  with  you ;  what  she  has 
taken  now  in  exchange  is  holy  marriage,  the 
only  real  and  sacred  marriage,  the  marriage  of 
true  souls,  to  which  even  the  wiser  of  your- 
selves, the  poets  of  your  nation,  would  not  ad- 
mit impediment."  Every  person  should  be 
absolutely  free  to  do  as  he  wills  with  his  own 
person,  for  this  is  the  very  foundation  of  per- 
sonal liberty.     Anything  else  is  slavery. 

One  is  amazed  to  find  how  common  this 
idea  is  in  modern  literature.  Lyndall,  in  The 
Story  of  An  African  Farm,  says  to  the  father 
of  her  illegitimate  child :  "  I  like  to  experi- 
ment, I  like  to  try.  I  cannot  marry  you  be- 
cause I  cannot  be  tied ;  but,  if  you  wish,  you 
may  take  me  away  with  you  ;  then  when  we 
do  not  love  any  more  we  can  say  good-bye." 
And  what  strikes  one  even  more  forcibly  than 


1 88  Will  the  Home  Survive 

these  words  is  the  way  in  which  the  men  of 
the  book  regard  this  illegitimacy.  They  have 
no  contempt  for  this  "  fallen  "  woman,  as  the 
world  has  had  in  the  past,  but  regard  her  in 
the  same  way  they  did  before  her  revolt 
against  the  family.  There  can  be  no  question 
that  marriage  has  become  to  the  mind  of  Miss 
Schreiner  an  open  question  which  must  be 
treated  along  with  the  open  questions  of  re- 
hgion. 

The  same  anti-marriage  doctrine  is  found  in 
/  Forbid  the  Banns  by  Frankfort  Moore. 
Bertha  refuses  marriage  as  being  beneath 
spiritual  union.  She  says  to  her  lover,  Julian 
Charlton :  "  Were  we  not  married  in  spirit  the 
first  hour  we  met,  nay,  were  our  souls  not 
wedded  from  the  instant  they  breathed  the 
same  air  of  this  world,  just  as  they  were  in  that 
past  existence  of  our  souls  of  which  we  re- 
member nothing  ?  .  .  .  Why  should  you 
hurt  me  by  talking  about  our  marriage  as  if  it 
were  something  in  the  future  ?  .  .  .  We  are 
already  wedded  as  indissolubly — nay,  far  more 
indissolubly  than  if  the  Archbishop  were  to 


Socialism  and  the  Family  189 

give  us  his  benison — sell  us  his  benison,  I 
should  rather  say ;  for  I  believe  your  special 
license  is  an  article  of  commerce." 

From  this  hasty  review  of  socialistic  writers, 
the  following  principles  seem  to  be  clear: 
First,  the  present  institution  of  the  family  is  a 
part  of  the  capitalistic  society  and  must  be 
abolished  with  the  present  industrial  order. 
Secondly,  under  socialism  man  and  woman 
will  be  economically  independent  of  one  an- 
other. Thirdly,  each  will  be  free  to  seek  the 
other  in  marriage  and  each  will  be  free  to 
separate  at  any  time.  Fourthly,  as  there  will 
be  no  marriage  but  free-union  there  will  be  no 
need  of  divorce.  The  free-union  is  a  private 
contract  and  no  outside  party  can  interfere. 

The  fundamental  defect  of  these  socialistic 
writers  in  their  treatment  of  the  family  is  the 
supposition  that  the  family  is  wholly  the  prod- 
uct of  economic  conditions,  hence  that  our 
institution  of  the  family  is  the  fruit  of  our 
present  economic  system,  and  that  with  the 
passing  of  the  latter  the  former  must  pass  also. 
This   supposition   includes    two  errors.     The 


IQO  Will  the  Home  Survive 

first  is  that  the  family  is  wholly  the  product 
of  economic  conditions.  This  is  the  assump- 
tion of  all  socialists  who  write  from  a  material- 
istic standpoint.  Philip  Rappaport,  in  his 
recent  volume,  Looking  Forward,  writing 
"  from  the  standpoint  of  historic  materialism," 
endeavors  to  prove  that  every  modification  of 
the  family  has  been  caused  by  material  condi- 
tions, a  proposition  quite  as  difficult  to  prove 
as  the  tenets  of  socialism.  A  close  study  of 
the  history  of  the  family  would  seem  to  indi- 
cate that  the  form  of  the  family  had  as  much 
to  do  with  the  form  of  economic  activity  as 
the  economic  conditions  had  to  do  with  the 
form  of  the  family.  One  was  as  much  a  de- 
termining factor  as  the  other.  "  It  is,"  says 
Helen  Bosanquet,  "  impossible  to  say  which 
position  has  most  truth  in  it — that  the 
stronger  organization  of  the  family  has  en- 
abled and  led  to  the  development  of  agricul- 
ture, or  that  the  development  of  agriculture 
has  determined  the  form  of  the  family.  Why, 
for  instance,  did  not  the  lower  insect-catching 
hunters  develop  the  patriarchal  family,  which 


Socialism  and  the  Family  191 

would  have  enabled  them  to  carry  on  agricul- 
ture ?  It  was  not  that  they  were  too  much 
scattered  by  their  way  of  life,  but  simply  that 
the  same  low  levels  of  intellect  which  pre- 
vented the  woman  from  taking  her  proper 
place  in  the  family,  and  prevented  the  higher 
organization  of  the  family  for  industrial  pur- 
poses, also  prevented  the  discovery  of  agri- 
culture and  its  pursuits.  At  the  utmost  it 
would  seem  that  all  we  can  say  with  certainty 
is,  that  at  an  early  stage  of  development  we 
find  a  particular  form  of  the  family  connected 
with  agriculture,  but  that  agriculture  has  per- 
sisted long  after  the  form  of  the  family  has 
broken  down,  and  that,  therefore,  the  connec- 
tion is  not  a  permanent  or  essential  one." 

The  second  error  is  the  assertion  that  our 
institution  of  the  family  is  a  product  of  the 
present  industrial  system  and  that  with  the 
destruction  of  the  latter  the  former  must 
change.  Nearly  every  form  of  State  Social- 
ism has  associated  the  family  with  a  "  bour- 
geois society,"  and  has  declared  that  with  the 
sweeping  away  of  private  capital  the  family 


192  JVill  the  Home  Survive 

will  disappear,  the  children  being  cared  for  by 
the  state,  as  will  also  be  the  man  and  the 
woman.     But  this  supposition  is  not  true  to 
the   facts   of  history.     As    Helen   Bosanquet 
says  :     •'  Throughout  all  changes  one  husband 
and  one  wife  has  been  the  constant  type,  all 
other  forms  mere  aberrations,  and  the  process 
of  development  has  been  always  towards  a 
more    deliberately    conscious    and    therefore 
higher  form  of  monogamy.     And  through  all 
changes,  again,  the  characteristic  feature  has 
persisted   that   father,   mother,   and   children 
have  formed  one  group,  of  which  the  father 
has  been  the  head  in  the  sense  not  only  of 
being  the  master,  but  also  of  being  responsible 
for  its  protection  and  maintenance."     If  the 
socialistic  conception  of  the  family  ever  gains 
the  ascendency  in  society  it  will  not  be  as  the 
gradual  evolution  of  the  family  but  as  a  radical 
break  in  the  line  of  natural  development.     It 
would  not  come,  as  all  other  social  forms  have 
come,  by   growth,  but   by  revolution,  over- 
throwing all  the  tendencies  and  instincts  that 
have  been  formed  in  humanity  through  the 


Socialism  and  the  Family         193 

ages  of  social  development.  The  instinct  of 
parent  for  child  is  as  old  as  history,  or  at  least 
exists  as  far  back  as  we  are  able  to  read  his- 
tory. The  appearance  of  the  child  has  always 
created  an  intimate  relation  between  child  and 
parent  and  it  is  not  probable  that  the  Utopian 
dreams  of  the  pleasure  that  might  come  to  the 
parent  who  could  desert  the  child  to  the  care 
of  the  state,  would  ever  be  strong  enough  to 
break  this  tie  between  mother  and  babe.  If 
such  could  be  accomplished,  it  would  certainly 
be  the  greatest  upheaval  that  has  ever  been 
known  in  the  moral  history  of  mankind. 

The  socialist,  as  well  as  the  individualist, 
can  be  no  more  conscious  of  the  defects  and 
limitation  of  family  Hfe,  than  those  who  are 
not  in  sympathy  with  either  of  these  schools 
of  thought.  The  man  who  has  had  any  ob- 
servation of  family  life  does  not  have  to  be 
reminded  that  "  the  family  itself  offers  no  guar- 
antee of  happiness,"  nor  does  he  question  that 
there  is  great  room  for  improvement.  The 
family  life  is  full  of  imperfections  and  incon- 
sistencies.    All  are  conscious  of  this  and  long 


194  Will  the  Home  Stirvive 

for  improvement,  but  the  question  arises,  Will 
socialism  entirely  eradicate  these  imperfec- 
tions ?  It  is  easy  to  write  Utopias,  picturing 
a  healthy  generation  in  perfect  harmony  with 
its  environment,  and  so  an  ideal  state  of  hap- 
piness. But  the  defect  of  every  Utopia  from 
Plato  to  Bellamy  is  that  it  has  failed  to  take 
account  of  the  law  of  change  and  develop- 
ment. Human  conditions  can  never  be  per- 
fect, and  no  human  state  can  ever  be  static. 
Disorder  is  inherent  in  the  nature  of  things, 
and  not  until  man's  mind  is  omniscient  can  it 
be  otherwise.  Man's  unhappiness  is  more  the 
fruit  of  his  imperfect  sympathy,  love,  wisdom, 
than  of  his  material  surroundings.  Wretched- 
ness creeps  into  the  homes  of  the  rich  as  well 
as  into  the  homes  of  the  poor.  Divorce  is 
quite  as  common  among  the  cultured  and  the 
wealthy  as  among  those  in  poverty  and  ig- 
norance. This  seems  to  argue  that  perfect 
economic  conditions  could  not  assure  happy 
and  useful  homes  unless  there  were  corre- 
sponding perfection  in  the  spiritual  natures  of 
men.     This     is    where    socialism     fails.     Its 


Socialism  mid  the  Family         195 

Utopias  are  broken  over  the  stubborn  fact  that 
under  the  best  material  conditions  some  men 
are  selfish,  mean,  cruel,  and  until  these  ele- 
ments are  eradicated  from  human  nature  the 
golden  age  can  never  come. 

Another  inherent  weakness  of  much  pres- 
ent-day agitation  of  socialism,  as  it  touches 
the  family,  is  that  it  not  only  selects  the  most 
degenerate  types  of  family  life  but  grossly 
misrepresents  the  spirit  of  the  best  form  of  the 
present-day  family.  Even  such  a  sincere  and 
honest  man  as  H.  G.  Wells  cannot  quite  free 
himself  from  this  tendency.  Writing  in  the 
Independent  of  November  i,  1906,  he  describes 
the  present  institution  of  the  family :  "  The 
head  of  the  family  has  been  the  citizen,  the 
sole  representative  of  the  family  in  the  state. 
About  him  have  been  grouped  his  one  or 
more  wives,  his  children,  his  dependents.  His 
position  towards  them  has  always  been — is 
still,  in  many  respects  to  this  day — one  of 
ownership.  He  was  owner  of  them  all.  .  .  . 
He  could  sell  his  children  into  slavery,  barter 
his  wives.     The  ownership  of  the  head  of  the 


196  Will  the  Home  Survive 

family  is  still  a  manifest  fact.  .  .  .  Every  in- 
telligent woman  understands  that,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  underneath  all  the  civilities  of  to-day, 
she  is  actually  and  potentially  property,  and 
has  to  treat  herself  and  keep  herself  at  that. 
.  .  .  The  fact  remains  fundamental  that  she 
is  either  isolated  or  owned." 

This  is  glaringly  unfair.  The  father  of  the 
past  may  have  been  a  tyrant.  His  authority 
rested  upon  his  physical  strength  and  his  wife 
and  children  obeyed  him  because  he  had  the 
physical  force  to  command  them.  But  this  is 
not  true  to-day,  except  in  very  rare  cases,  and 
should  the  father  even  attempt  to  base  his  au- 
thority upon  force,  the  laws  of  every  civilized 
nation  would  protect  the  weaker  members  of 
the  family.  In  lower  social  orders,  the  author- 
ity of  the  father  was  based  upon  his  monopoly 
of  wisdom.  He  was  the  adviser  and  teacher  of 
all  the  younger  members  of  the  family,  but  the 
organization  of  schools,  the  printing  of  books, 
the  dissemination  of  newspapers  and  maga- 
zines, have  spread  knowledge  so  widely  that 
paternal  authority  in  this  respect  has  become 


Socmlism  and  the  Family         197 

considerably  weakened.  In  olden  days  the 
father  was  priest  and  had  the  authority  not 
only  of  father  but  also  of  priest.  But  religious 
ceremonies  have  passed  to  the  church  and  the 
head  of  the  family  is  no  longer  priest.  In  fact 
the  authority  of  the  tyrant-father  is  little  more 
than  a  tradition.  Social  changes  have  de- 
throned the  tyrant,  if  he  was  ever  on  the 
throne,  and  to  describe  the  wife  as  owned  by 
the  husband  in  these  days  suggests  the  hu- 
morist rather  than  the  honest  seeker  for  truth. 
The  authority  of  the  head  of  the  family,  so 
far  as  it  exists  as  a  reality,  as  an  actual  moral 
force,  is  spiritual.  He  rules  his  children  just 
to  the  degree  in  which  he  is  able  intellectually 
and  morally  to  lead  them.  We  called  at  a 
home  some  time  ago  where  the  father,  as  a 
tyrant,  in  coarse,  harsh  language,  tried  to 
command  his  children,  threatening  them  with 
violence  if  they  did  not  obey.  One  of  the 
boys,  nine  or  ten  years  of  age,  turned  and 
cursed  his  father.  The  father  was  unfit 
morally  and  intellectually  to  rule  the  house- 
hold and  he  could  not  command  the  respect 


198  Will  the  Home  Sm^ive 

of  his  children.  Our  system  of  education  de- 
velops independence  in  the  boy  and  the  girl, 
and  they  can  be  ruled  only  by  a  father  who 
makes  himself  worthy  to  rule.  When  he  does 
this  he  has  not  only  the  obedience  but  the 
respect  of  his  children,  as  he  could  not  have 
under  the  older  tyranny  of  the  father. 

When  we  consider  the  relation  between  the 
modern  man  and  wife,  we  find  it  to  be  not  that 
of  ownership  but  of  partnership.  The  man 
has  learned  that  he  can  be  happiest,  and  his 
home  most  useful,  when  his  wife  is  given  the 
freedom  which  leads  to  her  highest  develop- 
ment ;  that  the  end  of  the  family  life  can  be 
best  realized  when  both  work  harmoniously 
for  a  common  end.  Their  aims  are  not  an- 
tagonistic and  their  self-development  can  only 
mean  larger  happiness  for  each.  They  are,  as 
Tennyson  writes : 

"  Not  like  to  like,  but  like  in  difference. 
Yet  in  the  long  years  liker  must  they  grow ; 
The  man  be  more  of  woman,  she  of  man  ; 
He  gain  in  sweetness  and  in  moral  height, 
Nor  lose  the  wrestling  thews  tliat  throw  the  world; 
She  mental  breadth,  nor  fail  in  childward  care, 


Socialism  and  the  Family  199 

Nor  lose  the  childlike  in  the  larger  mind  ; 

'Til  at  the  last  she  set  herself  to  man, 

Like  perfect  music  unto  noble  words ; 

And  so  these  twain,  upon  the  skirts  of  Time, 

Sit  side  by  side,  full-summ'd  in  all  their  powers, 

Dispensing  harvest,  sowing  the  To-be, 

Self-reverent  each,  and  reverencing  each. 

Distinct  in  individualities, 

But  like  each  other  ev'n  as  those  who  love." 

These  lines  from  The  Priiicess  breathe  the 
spirit  of  the  best  type  of  the  modern  family. 
The  fondest  dreams  of  the  socialist  cannot 
give  us  a  picture  of  a  family,  beautiful  in  its 
relations,  freighted  with  happiness,  which  sur- 
passes this  picture. 

Considered  from  a  moral  standpoint,  the 
extreme  positions  of  socialism  mean  nothing 
less  than  the  destruction  of  the  monogamous 
family,  and  even  some  of  the  more  modified 
positions  of  socialism  mean  such  a  loosening 
of  the  family  ties  that  it  is  impossible  to  see 
how  anything  of  the  sacredness  and  perma- 
nence of  the  home  would  remain.  Give  men 
and  women  absolute  freedom  in  making  or 
breaking  marriage  relations,  and  the  weaker 
portions  of  humanity  would  certainly  change 


200  Will  the  Home  Survive 

their  partners  as  school  children  change  their 
lovers.  Free  union  might  do  for  angels,  but 
we  are  human,  with  passions  which  are 
changeful  and  which  need  the  steadying 
hand  of  restraint.  Any  divorce-made-easy 
system  undermines  the  already  weak  natures 
of  man,  lowers  his  moral  standard,  and  works 
havoc  with  the  social  betterment  of  the  race. 
Until  we  are  a  long  way  in  advance  of  any- 
thing we  have  ever  yet  exhibited  as  a  race, 
the  state  must  continue  to  hold  a  steady  and 
firm  hand  upon  this  institution,  which  at  its 
highest  is  the  source  of  our  greatest  blessing, 
and  at  its  worst  is  the  source  of  sickening  cor- 
ruption. 

If,  however,  there  are  fundamental  defects 
in  the  socialistic  teaching  concerning  the 
family,  there  are  great  truths  which  cry  for 
recognition.  While  the  fundamental  con- 
dition of  happiness  is  character,  we  must 
not  forget  that  there  are  material  conditions 
where  high  spiritual  life  is  impossible. 

Much  has  been  said  in  these  days,  of  our 
prosperity.     There  is  great  prosperity  among 


Socialism  and  the  Family         201 

certain  classes,  but  there  is  another  class  over 
which  poverty  hangs  like  a  haunting  ghost. 
Mr.  Hunter  has  given  us  some  facts  which 
are  a  terrible  unveiling  of  social  conditions, 
even  after  we  have  made  full  allowance  for  his 
exaggerations.  He  quotes  Jacob  Riis  as  say- 
ing that  one  third  of  the  people  of  New 
York  were  dependent  upon  charity  at  some 
time  during  the  eight  years  previous  to  1890. 
The  report  of  the  Hebrew  Charities  for  1901 
reveals  similar  conditions  among  the  Hebrews. 
In  1903  twenty  per  cent,  of  the  people  of 
Boston  were  aided  in  some  way  by  charity. 
Mr.  Hunter  makes  the  very  astonishing  state- 
ment that  one  person  out  of  every  ten  in 
New  York  is  given  pauper  burial  at  public 
expense  in  Potter's  Field.  He  says :  "  I 
should  not  be  at  all  surprised  if  the  number 
of  those  in  poverty  in  New  York,  as  well  as 
in  other  large  cities  and  industrial  centres, 
rarely  fell  below  twenty-five  per  cent,  of  all 
the  people." 

Even  if  these  figures  be  greatly  exaggerated, 
they  still  mean  that  a  large  percentage  of  our 


202  Will  the  Home  Survive 

population  is  surrounded  by  material  condi- 
tions where  the  best  home  life  is  impossible. 
Time  and  energy  must  all  be  given  to  keeping 
the  wolf  from  the  door,  and  there  is  no  op- 
portunity of  entering  into  those  walks  of  life 
which  quicken  the  higher  spiritual  elements  of 
manhood  and  womanhood. 

Over  against  this  fact  must  be  placed  this 
other,  that  a  small  percentage  of  the  families 
of  this  country  hold  a  major  part  of  the 
wealth.  Mr.  Spahr  estimates  that  one  per 
cent,  of  the  families  of  this  country  hold 
more  wealth  than  the  remaining  ninety-nine 
per  cent.  Surely  an  economic  system  which 
produces  these  extremes  of  life  is  not  ideal. 
Surely  an  economic  system  which  builds  for 
one  man  a  palace,  surrounding  him  with 
wasteful  luxuries,  while  it  leaves  another  man 
to  live  on  less  than  the  barest  necessities  of 
life  cannot  be  the  highest  or  the  last  stage  in 
the  evolution  of  our  Christian  civilization.  A 
system  under  which  great  stores  can  pay  girls 
a  wage  on  which  they  cannot  live  decently,  if 
they  are   thrown   entirely  on  their  own   re- 


Socialism  and  the  Family  203 

sources ;  which  compels  mothers  to  work 
during  the  most  critical  periods  of  their  life 
that  is,  just  before  and  soon  after  the  birth 
of  a  child ;  which  blasts  the  bloom  of  child- 
hood, and  makes  possible  the  pathetic  story 
of  the  "  little  mothers,"  is  not  a  system  that 
can  endure  much  longer.  As  we  shall  show 
later,  the  chief  business  of  this  generation  is 
to  prepare  for  the  next  generation,  to  produce 
conditions  under  which  offspring  can  reach 
the  highest  point  of  efficiency.  The  accom- 
plishment of  this  end  must  be  the  test  of  any 
human  institution.  In  the  future,  social 
systems  must  stand  or  fall  by  this  test.  All 
that  fail  to  contribute  to  this  end  are  either 
superficial,  and  hence  useless,  or  wrong,  and 
hence  to  be  abolished. 


VIII 

H.    G.   WELLS:    THE   PROPHET    OF   THE 
NEW  ORDER 

Man  has  discovered  his  place  in  the  world. 
It  is  the  greatest  discovery  of  all  history. 
Until  recent  times,  man  has  never  known  his 
place  in  the  world-process.  He  has  had  no 
interest  in  the  past  because  it  was  past ;  he 
has  had  no  interest  in  the  distant  future  be- 
cause he  never  expected  to  see  it.  He  has 
been  an  egotist,  absorbed  in  the  present,  in- 
terested alone  in  the  present.  The  future 
may  have  had  interest  for  him  religiously, 
and  the  dream  of  the  happy  hunting-ground, 
or  the  mysterious  abode  of  the  spirits,  may 
have  led  him  to  offer  sacrifice  to  secure  the 
good  will  of  his  divinity.  But  in  the  future 
of  this  breeding,  toiling,  loving,  sorrowing 
race  of  men,  living  in  these  same  smoke- 
baptized  cities  where  we  have  lived,  men  have 

204 


The  Prophet  of  the  Nciv  Order     205 

had  little  interest.  Absorbed  in  the  present, 
the  past  and  the  future  have  been  forgot- 
ten. 

The  Christian  doctrine  of  salvation  has 
been  concerned  chiefly  with  the  individual. 
The  theology,  the  literature,  and  the  art  of 
Christendom  have  been  egoistic.  Dante  saw 
the  mills  of  God  grinding  for  the  purification 
of  the  individual,  while  Michael  Angelo  saw 
the  entire  world-process  in  the  light  of  indi- 
viduals who  were  to  escape  this  wicked  world 
to  find  safety  in  some  dimly  strange  and 
curious  region.  Calvinist  and  Arminian, 
Romanist  and  Protestant  have  never  discov- 
ered anything  greater  than  an  individual  ab- 
sorbed in  the  present,  never  thoughtful  of  pro- 
jecting his  life  into  the  future  of  mankind,  but 
feverishly  anxious  to  escape  mankind  to  save 
his  own  soul. 

Man's  political  economy  was  the  fruit  of 
the  same  egoism.  His  doctrine  of  the  indi- 
vidual found  expression  in  the  old  theory  of 
uncontrolled  competition.  It  was  the  cruel 
doctrine    which   produced  industrial    despots 


206  Will  the  Home  Survive 

who  kept  women  and  children  working  in 
factories  from  twelve  to  fifteen  hours  a  day, 
conditions  under  which,  it  is  said,  half  of  the 
infants  of  Manchester,  England,  died  under 
three  years,  the  mere  story  of  which  still 
haunts  England  like  an  awful  nightmare  The 
horizon  of  life  was  no  larger  than  the  im- 
mediate needs  and  desires  of  the  individual, 
and  his  attitude  towards  the  body  politic  was 
determined  by  these  facts. 

Under  this  old  theology  and  this  old 
economy,  the  future  of  mankind  was  not  con- 
sidered. Why  should  men  build  houses  for 
others  to  live  in  ?  Why  should  men  sacrifice 
their  labor  to  plant  trees  whose  fruits  they 
would  never  taste  ?  It  was  this  individualism 
which  made  pessimistic  Schopenhauer  rebel- 
liously  ask  :  "  Why  must  we  be  forever  tor- 
tured by  this  passion  to  reproduce  our  kind, 
why  are  all  our  pursuits  tainted  with  this  ap- 
plication, all  our  needs  referred  to  the  needs 
of  a  new  generation  that  tramples  upon  our 
heels  ?  "  To  the  older  thinkers,  this  ruthless 
passion  hurled  man  on  before  it  as  the  wave 


The  Prophet  of  the  New  Order     207 

hurls  the  swimmer.     He  might  rebel,  still  he 
was  hurled  on. 

We  are,  however,  beginning  to  see  that  the 
individual  lives  for  the  future ;  that  he  gets 
his  meaning  from  his  relation  to  the  future  of 
the  race.  He  has  significance  in  the  present 
onlybecause  the  present  is  productive  of  the 
future.  He  has  meaning  to-day  only  because 
to-morrow  grows  out  of  to-day. 

One  of  the  greatest  prophets  of  this  gospel, 
a  pagan  and  a  visionist,  yet  a  prophet  who  has 
seen  more  clearly  man's  relation  to  the  de- 
velopment of  the  race  than  many  who  scoff  at 
the  pagans,  is  H.  G.  Wells.  He  has  seen 
clearly  that  man  gains  his  meaning  for  the 
world-process  in  the  production  and  develop- 
ment of  the  next  generation  of  men.  Life, 
as  Mr.  Wells  sees  it,  is  "  essentially  a  matter  of 
reproduction  ;  first  a  growth  and  training  to 
that  end,  then  commonly  mating  and  actual 
reproduction,  and  finally  the  consummation  of 
these  things  in  parental  nurture  and  educa- 
tion." This  is  the  chief  end  of  man  as  it  is 
of  all  life.     The  world  is  a  "  great  birthplace. 


2o8  Will  the  Home  Survive 

an  incessant  renewal,  an  undying  fresh  begin- 
ning and  unfolding  of  life."  Take  away  this 
fact  and  we  have  nothing  but  stagnation  and 
death, — no  spring-time,  no  sweet-smelling 
flowers,  no  laughing  children,  no  waving  har- 
vests, no  singing  birds,  but  cold,  monotonous 
death.  It  is  the  promise  of  the  spring-time 
that  makes  winter  endurable,  and  it  is  not  the 
amount  of  beer  and  cheese,  or  beef  and  rolls 
that  man  can  eat  and  drink  that  gives  interest 
to  mankind.  The  most  interesting  thing 
about  the  present  race  of  men  is  that  the  next 
generation  of  men  is  dependent  upon  them 
for  their  production  and  nurture.  This  is  the 
real  wonder  in  comparison  with  which  all 
others  dwindle  into  insignificance. 

This  being  true,  the  chief  business  of  man- 
kind is  to  create  conditions  under  which  off- 
spring can  reach  the  highest  point  of  effi- 
ciency. "  The  serious  aspect  of  our  private 
lives,  the  general  aspect  of  all  our  social  and 
cooperative  undertakings,  is  to  prepare  as  well 
as  we  possibly  can  a  succeeding  generation, 
which  shall  prepare  still  more  capably  for  still 


The  Prophet  of  the  New  Order     209 

better  generations  to  follow."  This  must  be 
the  test  of  any  human  institution.  In  the 
future,  social  systems  must  stand  or  fall  by 
their  ability  to  produce  conditions  in  which  a 
new-born  child  may  realize  the  strongest  and 
best  life.  All  that  fail  to  contribute  to  this 
end  are  either  superficial  and  hence  useless,  or 
wrong  and  hence  to  be  abolished. 

There  has  been  an  immense  amount  of 
social  quackery  which  has  turned  man  away 
from  an  intelligent  pursuit  of  this  primal  object 
of  his  existence.  In  his  earlier  life,  Mr.  Wells 
himself  was  entrapped  by  one  of  these  shams, 
that  of  scientific  marriage  for  the  production 
of  a  better  race  of  men.  The  chief  objection 
to  this  idea  is  that  it  will  not  work.  Shaw 
may  advocate  the  mating  of  a  duke  and  a 
charwoman,  but  there  is  one  insuperable 
barrier  to  the  proposition,  namely,  that  the 
duke  does  not  care  for  the  charwoman,  nor 
does  she  care  for  him.  Though  the  state 
should  forbid  the  marriage  of  diseased  persons, 
it  could  not  prevent  people  "  falling  in  love  " 
and  living  together  in  free  union,  and  though 


2IO  Will  the  Home  Survive 

the  state  offered  large  pensions  to  young  men 
SIX  feet  in  height,  strong  of  muscle,  and  sound 
in  every  organ,  who  would  marry  women 
with  large  chests  and  broad  hips  and  rosy 
cheeks,  approved  by  the  health  officer,  they 
would  spurn  the  pension  and  marry  the  first 
invalid  for  whom  they  had  a  passion. 

Another  objection  to  this  scientific  marriage 
is  a  lack  of  knowledge  of  how  to  breed  to 
secure  the  things  desired.  "  We  are  not  a  bit 
clear  what  points  to  breed  for  and  what  points 
to  breed  out."  The  breeding  of  cattle  is  a 
simple  matter  because  the  breeder  knows  what 
he  wants, — a  certain  grade  of  milk,  or  of  good 
beef.  It  is  easy  to  breed  for  these  simple 
qualities ;  but  man  is  not  used  for  beef,  and 
in  these  days  of  endless  foods  even  woman  is 
dispensable  as  a  giver  of  milk.  In  man  we 
must  breed  for  beauty,  health,  ability,  genius, 
energy,  all  so  complex  that  it  is  impossible  to 
define  one  of  them,  much  less  to  breed  for 
them.  The  varieties  of  beauty  are  endless. 
There  is  the  delicate  beauty  of  the  English 
woman,  the  homely  beauty  of  the  Dutch,  the 


\ 


The  Prophet  of  the  New  Order    211 

tropic  beauty  of  the  tambourine  girl  following 
the  organ-grinder,  and  the  quaint  beauty  of  the 
Japanese.  For  what  type  of  beauty  shall  we 
breed  ?  We  are  as  unable  to  breed  for  perfect 
health  as  for  beauty,  for  what  is  health  in  one 
person  may  not  be  health  in  another. 
"  Health  is  a  balance,  a  balance  of  blood  against 
nerve,  of  digestion  against  secretion,  of  heart 
against  brain.  A  heart  of  perfect  health  and 
vigor  put  into  the  body  of  a  perfectly  healthy 
man  who  is  built  upon  a  slighter  scale  than 
that  heart,  will  swiftly  disorganize  the  entire 
fabric  and  burst  its  way  to  a  hemorrhage  in 
lungs,  perhaps,  or  brain,  or  wherever  the 
slightest  relative  weakness  permits."  The 
perfect  health  of  an  American  Indian  is  not 
the  same  as  the  perfect  health  of  a  New 
Yorker,  nor  the  health  of  the  negro  in  the 
plantation  cabin  the  same  as  that  of  the 
Prince  of  Wales.  All  of  this  talk  of  breeding 
for  better  men  breaks  down  because  we  do 
not  know  enough.  Whether  men  will  ever 
know  enough  remains  to  be  seen,  but  this 
much  is  certain,  if  ever  men  do  know  enough, 


212  Will  the  Home  Survive 

the  novelist  will  still  not  be  deprived  of 
material  for  his  books,  for  youth  and  maiden 
will  still  love,  still  elope,  still  make  their  own 
choice,  while  the  scientist  goes  on  spinning  his 
theories. 

The  particular  social  quackery  which  is  just 
now  blinding  men  to  the  real  issue  of  life  is 
the  delusion  of  •'  race-suicide,"  a  sham  which 
has  never  been  better  exposed  than  by  Mr. 
Wells.  The  alarmist  is  crying  that  long  before 
the  sun  has  a  chance  to  burn  up  his  carbon 
and  leave  the  earth  in  darkness,  mankind  will 
have  been  extinguished  by  the  fall  of  the  birth- 
rate. Skepticism  and  materialism,  love  of 
ease  and  luxury,  are  all  blamed  by  this  alarm- 
ist for  this  decline.  These  things  have  re- 
sulted in  the  loss  of  seriousness,  it  is  said,  and 
with  the  loss  of  this  Puritan  virtue  women  are 
losing  their  courage  and  men  are  wasting 
themselves  in  their  selfish  pleasures.  Such  a 
statement  is  not  true.  It  is  because  the  race 
is  becoming  more  religious,  and  our  women 
more  courageous,  that  the  birth-rate  is  declin- 
ing.    A    fundamental   religious  conviction  is 


The  Prophet  of  the  New  Order     213 

taking  possession  of  the  race  that  if  govern- 
ments will  serve  the  highest  interests  of  man- 
kind it  will  not  be  necessary  to  produce  so 
many  children.  When  a  government  permits 
conditions  to  exist  where  one  half  of  the  infants 
die  before  they  reach  maturity ;  when  wars 
drain  the  population,  every  generation,  of  its 
strongest  men ;  when  wasteful  governments 
spend  every  year  for  the  maintenance  of  armies 
and  navies,  millions  which  ought  to  be  spent 
in  improving  the  homes  of  the  poor  and  in 
creating  an  environment  where  the  mortality 
will  decrease  ;  spending  them  upon  instruments 
for  the  murder  of  the  poor  creatures  who 
happen  to  survive  unsanitary  conditions,  then 
women  must  be  turned  into  perennial  breeding 
animals  to  furnish  a  fresh  supply.  The  relig- 
ious consciousness  of  the  race  will  not  permit 
it  to  continue  in  this  ungodly  way.  The  con- 
science of  the  race  has  not  become  flabby. 
The  instinct  of  motherhood  has  not  been  lost. 
There  are  sterile  women  and  giddy  women 
who  will  not  bear  children,  and  there  always 
have  been,  but  in  the  race  the  conscience  is 


214  Will  the  Home  Survive 

becoming  stronger  as  it  is  becoming  more  en- 
lightened, and  the  instinct  of  motherhood 
centres  upon  a  few  children  that  can  be  well 
cared  for  and  nurtured  to  produce  in  the  future 
a  better  race  of  men.  The  maternal  instinct 
refuses  to  bear  sons  to  be  shot  or  daughters  to 
die  in  the  poisonous  air  of  cheap  tenements 
before  they  reach  their  teens. 

The  little  that  governments  have  done  only 
serves  to  strengthen  people's  convictions.  The 
slight  improvements  made  in  the  conditions 
has  increased  the  population  in  spite  of  the 
decrease  of  birth-rate.  In  England  and  Wales, 
between  1846  and  1850,  there  were  33.8  births 
per  1,000  ;  between  1896  and  1900,  there  were 
28.0  per  1,000,  a  decrease  in  the  birth-rate  of 
5.8.  But  between  1846  and  1850,  the  death- 
rate  was  23.3  per  1,000;  between  1896  and 
1900,  it  was  17.7  per  i,ooo,  a  decrease  of  $.6, 
leaving  only  .2  decrease  in  population.  Now 
comes  another  fact,  discouraging  to  the  alarm- 
ist, who  sees  all  good  in  the  past.  The 
illegitimate  births  between  1846  and  1850 
numbered   2.2  per   1,000;  between  1896  and 


The  Prophet  of  the  New  Order     215 

1900,  they  numbered  1.2  per  1,000.  Had  it 
not  been  for  the  fall  in  the  number  of  illegiti- 
mate births  the  population  would  have  in- 
creased .8,  The  increase  in  the  morality  of  the 
people  was  the  cause  in  the  slight  decrease  in 
population.  The  prolongation  of  the  average 
time  of  life  almost  overcame  the  decrease  in 
birth-rate.  Considering  the  little  that  has  been 
done  to  better  the  conditions  of  the  poor,  this 
is  a  marvelous  record.  When  governments 
spend  less  upon  champagne  and  the  millinery 
of  state,  less  upon  instruments  of  destruction, 
and  turn  their  millions  to  the  preservation  of 
life,  then  it  will  not  be  necessary  to  produce 
so  many  children. 

Mr.  Wells  has  clearly  demonstrated  the  pos- 
sibility of  further  reducing  the  mortality  of 
infants  in  England,  and  what  is  true  in  Eng- 
land is  true  also  in  America,  In  Rutlandshire, 
in  1900,  103  children  out  of  1,000  died  under 
five  years  of  age;  in  Dorsetshire  133  out  of 
every  1,000,  and  in  Lancashire,  274  out  of 
every  1,000.  "  Unless  we  are  going  to  assume 
that  the  children  born  in  Lancashire  are  in- 


2i6  Will  the  Home  Survive 

herently  weaker  than  the  children  born  in 
Rutland  or  Dorset — and  there  is  not  a  shadow 
of  reason  why  we  should  believe  that — we 
must  suppose  that  at  least  171  children  out  of 
every  1,000  in  Lancashire  were  killed  by  the 
conditions  into  which  they  were  born."  The 
government,  absorbed  in  its  imperialism,  sur- 
rounding itself  with  guns  and  dynamite,  and 
the  politicians  busy  with  measures  that  would 
get  them  votes,  permitted  this  "  perennial 
massacre  of  the  innocents." 

There  is  no  reason  why  the  103  deaths  out 
of  each  1,000  in  Rutland  might  not  be  con- 
siderably reduced.  Grant  that  some  are  born 
who  are  not  fit  to  live  because  of  inherent  de- 
fects. This  "  leaves  untouched  the  fact  that  a 
vast  multitude  of  children  of  untainted  blood 
and  good  mental  and  moral  possibilities,  as 
many,  perhaps,  as  100  in  each  1,000  born,  die 
yearly  through  insufficient  food,  insufficient 
good  air,  and  insufficient  attention.  The  plain 
and  simple  truth  is  that  they  are  born  need- 
lessly. There  are  still  too  many  births  for  our 
civilization  to  look  after ;  we  are  still  unfit  to 


The  Prophet  of  the  New  Order     217 

be  trusted  with  a  rising  birth-rate."  Until 
governments  can  deal  more  wisely  with  the 
children  already  produced,  they  would  do  well 
to  urge  less  upon  parents  the  production  of 
innocents  for  the  slaughter. 

■  What  Mr.  Wells  has  so  clearly  revealed  con- 
cerning the  conditions  in  England  is  equally 
true  of  the  continent  of  Europe  and  of  America. 
In  Chicago  the  death-rate  varies  from  about 
twelve  per  thousand  in  the  wards  where  the 
rich  reside,  to  thirty-seven  per  thousand  in  the 
tenement  wards.  The  poor  man's  district  in 
Paris  has  a  death-rate  twice  as  high  as  that  of 
the  Elysee.  The  "  Back-Bay  "  district  of  Bos- 
ton had  in  one  year  9.44  per  cent,  as  against 
25.21  per  cent,  in  the  thirteenth  ward,  which 
is  a  typical  working-class  district.  Dr.  Charles 
R.  Drysdale,  senior  physician  of  the  Metro- 
politan Free  Hospital,  declared  some  years 
ago  that  the  death-rate  among  the  rich  was 
not  more  than  eight  per  cent.,  while  among 
the  very  poor  it  was  as  high  as  forty  per  cent. 
Along  with  these  alarming  facts   we  must 

place  this  fact,  which  is  held  by  many  of  the 


2i8  Will  the  Home  Survive 

leading  physicians  who  have  had  opportunity 
to  observe,  that  the  babe  born  in  the  tenement 
is  equal  physically  to  the  babe  born  in  the 
palace.  Nature  starts  both  in  the  world  with 
an  equal  chance.  The  large  increase  in  the 
death-rate  in  the  poorer  districts  is  the  result 
of  poor  food,  ignorant  care,  poor  houses, 
meagre  clothing.  These  affect  the  child  not 
before  but  after  it  is  born. 

Again  we  have  to  consider  the  large  num- 
ber of  children  who  are  incapacitated  for  life's 
struggle  because  of  the  work  to  which  they  are 
compelled  to  submit  in  years  when  they  should 
be  developing  physically  and  mentally.  The 
United  States  census  shows  that  nearly  two 
million  child  breadwinners  under  fifteen  years 
of  age  are  now  at  work.  Of  these  almost 
700,000  are  engaged  in  work  other  than  agri- 
culture. Child  labor  on  the  farm,  in  the  open 
air,  does  not  injure  the  child,  but  the  great 
majority  who  are  working  in  the  cotton  mills 
of  the  South,  in  glass  factories,  and  other 
places,  are  unfitted  by  the  very  nature  of  their 
labor  for  the  struggle  for  hfe.     Appalling  as 


The  Prophet  of  the  New  Order     219 

these  figures  are,  they  are  much  below  the 
truth. 

Thus  it  is  evident  that  the  real  race-suicide 
is  not  in  the  fall  of  the  birth-rate  but  in  the 
murder  of  the  infants  for  whom  we  have  not 
yet  learned  to  care.  Instead  of  encouraging 
large  families,  many  of  them  in  a  condition  of 
poverty  and  want,  we  would  do  better  to  give 
ourselves  more  seriously  to  the  problem  of 
properly  housing,  clothing,  and  feeding  the 
infants  already  born,  and  making  laws  for  the 
protection  of  children  from  labor.  The  ruin 
of  America's  children  is  too  high  a  price  to 
pay  for  making  still  richer  a  few  men  who  are 
already  too  rich.  It  may  be  well  enough  for 
statesmen  to  urge  upon  American  mothers  the 
bearing  of  many  children  as  a  high  moral  and 
religious  duty,  but  it  seems  a  higher  moral  and 
religious  duty  to  make  conditions  in  which  a 
smaller  number  can  grow  into  the  largeness 
and  beauty  of  manhood  and  womanhood. 

It  will  be  a  part  of  the  ethical  code  of  the 
future  that  poor  families,  at  least,  shall  have 
fewer  children  ^nd  care  better  for  the  devel- 


220  Will  the  Home  Survive 

opment  of  their  lives.  Towards  this  end,  it 
may  not  be  amiss  for  charity  workers  and  min- 
isters, who  come  much  into  contact  with  poor 
fathers  and  mothers,  to  teach  the  moral  obli- 
gation of  preventing  pregnancy  after  the  birth 
of  two  or  three  children. 

Every  child  born  into  the  world  is  entitled 
to  good  food,  good  air,  and  a  bright  and 
cheerful  house,  where  it  can  grow  to  the  best 
advantage,  and  it  should  be  the  business  of 
government  to  see  that  every  mother  is  sup- 
plied with  these  things,  both  for  herself  and  for 
her  child.  The  institutions  of  charity  founded 
for  this  purpose  are  not  successful.  They  not 
only  lessen  parental  responsibility,  and  give 
the  child  a  mechanical  rather  than  a  sympa- 
thetic environment,  but  they  encourage  births 
among  the  class  where  they  are  least  desirable. 
The  best  charity  is  an  imperfect  makeshift  and 
cannot  solve  the  great  problem  of  the  care  and 
training  of  children. 

There  are  several  things  which  touch  the 
problem  directly,  and  which,  if  enforced,  would 
produce  a  better  race.     First,  reckless  parent- 


The  Prophet  of  the  New  Order     221 

age  should  be  discouraged.  This  can  be  done, 
Mr.  Wells  thinks,  by  making  "  the  parent  the 
debtor  to  society  on  account  of  the  child  for 
adequate  food,  clothing,  and  care,  for  at  least 
the  first  twelve  or  thirteen  years  of  life,  and  in 
the  event  of  parental  default  to  invest  the  local 
authority  with  exceptional  powers  of  recovery 
in  this  matter.  It  would  be  quite  easy  to  set 
up  a  minimum  standard  of  clothing,  cleanli- 
ness, growth,  nutrition,  and  education,  and 
provide  that  if  that  standard  was  not  main- 
tained by  a  child,  or  if  the  child  was  found  to 
be  bruised  or  maimed  without  the  parents 
being  able  to  account  for  these  injuries,  the 
child  should  be  at  once  removed  from  the 
parental  care,  and  the  parents  charged  with 
the  cost  of  a  suitable  maintenance — which 
need  not  be  excessively  cheap.  If  the  parents 
fail  in  the  payments,  they  should  be  put  into 
celibate  labor  establishments  to  work  off  as 
much  of  the  debt  as  they  could,  and  they 
would  not  be  released  until  the  debt  was  fully 
discharged.  Legislation  of  this  type  would 
not  only  secure  all  and  more  of  the  advantages 


222  Will  the  Home  Survive 

children  of  the  least  desirable  sort  now  get, 
but  it  would  certainly  invest  parentage  with  a 
quite  unprecedented  gravity  for  the  reckless, 
and  it  would  enormously  reduce  the  number 
of  births  of  the  least  desirable  sort." 

The  government  could  establish  a  minimum 
standard  of  sanitary  conditions  in  houses  and 
make  it  illegal  for  any  man  to  inhabit  a  house 
which  fell  below  this  standard.  Rooms  of  a 
certain  size,  necessary  ventilating  appliances, 
plenty  of  light  and  good  air,  are  things  which 
should  belong  to  every  house.  These  houses 
should  be  kept  in  good  repair,  and  in  no  case 
should  they  be  crowded.  "The  minimum 
permissible  tenement  for  a  maximum  of  two 
adults  and  a  very  young  child  is  one  properly 
ventilated  room  capable  of  being  heated,  with 
close  and  easy  access  to  sanitary  conveniences, 
a  constant  supply  of  water  and  easy  means  of 
getting  warm  water.  More  than  one  child 
should  mean  another  room,  and  it  seems  only 
reasonable,  if  we  go  so  far  as  this,  to  go  fur- 
ther and  require  a  minimum  of  furniture  and 
equipment,  a   fire-guard,  for  instance,  and  a 


The  Prophet  of  the  New  Order     223 

separate  bed  or  cot  for  the  child.  In  a  civi- 
lized community,  children  should  not  sleep 
with  adults,  and  the  killing  of  children  by 
'  accidental '  overlaying  should  be  a  punishable 
offense.  If  a  woman  does  not  wish  to  be 
dealt  with  as  a  half-hearted  murderess  she 
should  not  behave  like  one." 

It  may  be  objected  that  these  demands  are 
unreasonable,  that  it  would  make  it  impossible 
for  the  poor  to  have  children,  as  they  could 
not  meet  these  conditions.  Under  present 
conditions  it  might  be  impossible,  but  if  this 
standard  is  right  the  government  should  cor- 
rect the  conditions  which  make  the  ideal  im- 
possible. It  should  be  corrected  by  establish- 
ing a  minimum  wage.  No  man  ought  to  be 
permitted  to  labor  for  a  wage  which  would 
not  allow  him  to  live  a  wholesome,  healthy, 
and  reasonably  happy  life.  The  industry 
which  cannot  afford  to  pay  such  a  wage  is  a 
positive  curse  to  civilization.  Rather  than 
being  a  source  of  wealth  to  the  nation  it  is  a 
"  disease  and  a  parasite  upon  the  public  body." 
Hence  all  such  industries  should  be  abolished, 


224  Will  the  Home  Survive 

only  those  being  permitted  to  exist  that  can 
pay  a  wage  large  enough  to  permit  a  man  to 
rent  a  tenement  in  the  best  condition,  one  of 
sufficient  size  to  accommodate  three  or  four 
children ;  large  enough  "  to  maintain  himself 
and  wife  and  children  above  the  minimum 
standard  of  comfort,  his  insurance  against 
premature  and  accidental  death  or  temporary 
economic  or  physical  disablement,  some  mini- 
mum provision  for  old  age  and  a  certain 
margin  for  the  exercise  of  his  individual 
freedom." 

Mr.  Wells  also  sees  a  way  out  of  this  dif- 
ficulty through  some  scheme  of  paid  mother- 
hood. He  believes  that  woman  suffers  to-day 
because  of  a  wrong  standard  of  comparison 
with  man.  Her  value  is  measured  by  her 
ability  to  produce  wealth,  and  as  she  has 
neither  the  physical  strength  nor  general  fit- 
ness for  this  work,  she  must  be  considered 
inferior  to  man  in  precisely  the  measure  in 
which  she  differs  from  him.  Her  real  value 
to  the  state  is  to  be  found  in  her  possibility  of 
motherhood,  and  until  this  is  recognized,  and 


The  Prophet  of  the  New  Order    225 

she  is  paid  for  it,  she  will  be  dependent  upon 
man  and  in  some  sense  his  property.  But 
"  suppose  the  state  secures  to  every  woman 
who  is,  under  legitimate  sanctions,  becoming 
or  likely  to  become  a  mother,  that  is  to  say 
who  is  duly  married,  a  certain  wage  from  her 
husband  to  secure  her  against  the  need  of  toil 
and  anxiety,  suppose  it  pays  her  a  certain 
gratuity  upon  the  birth  of  a  child,  and  con- 
tinues to  pay  at  regular  intervals  sums  suffi- 
cient to  keep  her  and  her  child  in  independent 
freedom,  so  long  as  the  child  keeps  up  to  the 
minimum  standard  of  health  and  physical  and 
mental  development.  Suppose  it  pays  more 
upon  the  child  when  it  rises  markedly  above 
certain  minimum  qualification,  physical  or 
mental,  and,  in  fact,  does  its  best  to  make 
thoroughly  efficient  motherhood  a  profession 
worth  following.  And  suppose,  in  correla- 
tion with  this,  it  forbids  the  industrial  em- 
ployment of  married  women  and  of  mothers 
who  have  children  needing  care,  unless  they 
are  in  a  position  to  employ  qualified,  efficient 
substitutes   to   take   care   of    their    offspring. 


226  Will  the  Home  Survive 

What  differences  from  terrestrial  conditions 
will  ensue?" 

Wells  thinks  that  at  least  some  of  the  evils 
of  civilization  would  be  abolished  and  three 
or  four  very  helpful  things  would  be  ac- 
complished. "  It  will  abolish  the  hardship 
of  a  majority  of  widows,  who  on  earth  are 
poor  and  encumbered  exactly  in  proportion 
as  they  have  discharged  the  chief,  distinctive 
duty  of  a  woman,  and  miserable,  just  in  pro- 
portion as  their  standard  of  life  and  education 
is  high.  It  will  abolish  the  hardship  of  those 
who  do  not  now -marry  on  account  of  poverty, 
or  who  do  not  dare  to  have  children.  The  fear 
that  often  turns  a  woman  from  a  beautiful  to 
amercenary  marriage  will  vanish  from  life.  .  .  . 
A  career  of  wholesome  motherhood  would  be, 
under  such  conditions  as  I  have  suggested,  the 
normal  and  remunerative  calling  of  a  woman." 

There  are  some  inherent  weaknesses  about 
this  scheme  of  paid  motherhood  which  must 
be  considered.  We  have  already  pointed  to 
the  fact  that  Wells  misrepresents  the  relation 
which  woman  holds  to  man  in  the  best  type 


Tlie  Prophet  of  the  New  Order     227 

of  family  life  at  the  present  time.  She  is  not 
man's  property  in  any  sense  and  is  not  by 
him  considered  to  be  in  any  way  inferior  to 
man.  The  idea  of  woman's  inferiority  to 
man  is  one  of  the  straw-men  the  emancipators 
of  women  set  up  to  knock  down.  Beings 
who  are  utterly  unlike  cannot  be  compared  as 
inferior  or  superior.  A  violet  cannot  be 
called  inferior  to  a  rose  or  a  rose  to  a  violet. 
Each  has  its  own  perfume  and  beauty.  The 
woman  is  not  inferior  to  man,  she  is  different 
from  man.  Each  has  a  mission  to  fulfil  and 
each  is  dependent  upon  the  other  for  the  per- 
fect fulfilment  of  that  mission.  Woman's 
position  could  not  be  more  exalted  by  making 
her  a  subject  of  state  aid.  It  would  cheapen 
her  entire  life. 

Yet  it  does  not  seem  unreasonable  that 
mothers  with  small  incomes,  and  widows  who 
are  left  with  children  but  with  no  means  of 
support  except  labor  which  would  take  them 
away  from  the  care  of  their  children,  should 
be  guaranteed  a  reasonable  amount  for  the 
care  of  each  child  until  it  reaches  a  certain  age, 


228  Will  the  Home  Survive 

when  it  can  care  for  itself.  The  government 
already  guarantees  a  certain  amount  of  money 
for  the  education  of  the  child.  The  city 
spends  a  certain  amount  of  money  upon 
public  parks  where  the  child  can  play;  a 
large  amount  upon  sanitation  and  other  means 
of  preventing  disease.  It  is  only  a  small  step 
to  go  a  little  further  and  guarantee  enough  for 
the  proper  feeding  and  clothing  of  the  child, 
so  that  the  tremendous  death-rate  below  five 
years  of  age  may  be  reduced.  Truly  this  is 
not  more  unreasonable  than  that  governments 
should  spend  large  amounts  upon  armies  and 
navies  for  the  destruction  of  life. 

Men  scoff  at  this  as  a  meagre  materialistic  in- 
terpretation of  life  and  stamp  Wells  as  a  pagan. 
He  is  certainly  not  a  flawless  leader  towards 
our  social  redemption.  Much  that  we  said 
concerning  socialism  and  the  family  would 
apply  to  Wells,  as  he  is  a  socialist.  We  be- 
lieve his  conception  of  the  marriage  contract 
is  fundamentally  wrong.  If,  however,  these 
scoffers  at  Wells'  materialism  could  be  placed 
in  the  home  of  the  poor  man,  be  compelled  to 


The  Prophet  of  the  New  Order     229 

live  on  his  wage,  to  bear  children  and  support 
them  in  such  meagre  surroundings,  he  might 
suddenly  discover  in  the  doctrine  a  sublime 
idealism,  with  a  spiritual  dynamic  for  the  re- 
deeming of  souls  which  has  not  been  attached 
to  more  pretentious  doctrines  of  salvation. 
Others  scornfully  brush  Wells  aside  as  a  vi- 
sionist.  And  so  he  is,  but  the  curse  of  the 
world  is  that  there  are  so  few  who  see  vi- 
sions. Men  are  so  concerned  with  tariff  and 
ship-subsidy  bills,  with  the  building  of  canals, 
and  the  regulation  of  their  beer  and  whiskey, 
that  they  never  consider  the  real  problem  of 
life,  the  making  of  men.  It  is  to  the  credit  of 
Mr.  Wells  that  he  has  seen  that  this  is  the 
business  of  mankind,  that  all  other  business 
should  centre  about  this  great  undertaking, 
that  the  business  of  the  man  of  to-day  is  to 
work  for  the  man  of  to-morrow. 

It  is  objected  that  Wells  is  scornful  of  re- 
ligion and  contemptuous  of  religious  instruc- 
tion. Here  he  may  be  weak  as  a  public  leader. 
The  heart  must  not  be  left  cheerless  and  cold. 
Neither  must  the  body  be  left  hungry,  nor  the 


230  Will  the  Home  Survive 

development  of  the  physical  sacrificed  to  the 
spiritual.  In  emphasizing  the  former,  Wells 
has  done  a  work  neglected  by  enthusiasts  in 
religion. 


IX 

SOME  CONCLUDING  WORDS 

The  question  was  raised  at  the  beginning  of 
this  inquiry,  Will  the  home  survive  ?  It  was 
made  evident  that  the  home  of  our  fathers  has 
not  survived  without  great  modifications,  be- 
cause of  certain  industrial  conditions  that  have 
existed.  Nor  can  we  have  considered  the 
various  attacks  that  have  been  made  upon  the 
home  without  feeling  that  there  will  be  in  the 
future  further  modifications  in  the  institution 
of  the  family.  It  is  inconceivable  that  so 
many  sincere  minds  could  attack  this  institu- 
tion at  so  many  more  or  less  vulnerable  points 
without  causing  some  further  change. 

All  social  institutions,  from  their  very 
nature,  must  be  in  a  constant  state  of  change. 
The  history  of  government  is  the  history  of 
change,  the  history  of  new  governmental 
plans  to  meet  new  social  conditions.     What  is 

231 


232  Will  the  Home  Survive 

true  of  the  state  is  true  of  the  family.     While 
the  essential  type  of  the  family,  that  is,  father, 
mother,  and  child,  has  existed  from  the  earliest 
records  of  human  history,  the  modifications  of 
that  type  have  been  almost  as  numerous  as 
have  been  the  tribes  and  races  which  have 
covered  the  earth.     Nomadic  life  has  always 
meant  a  certain  kind  of  family  life,  while  agri- 
culture has  meant  another  type.     A  rich,  pro- 
ductive soil,  which  made  easy  the  obtaining  of 
food,  sometimes,  in  the  early  history  of  the 
race,  as  with  Israel,  meant  polygamy,  while  a 
sterile,  unproductive  soil  has  sometimes  been 
the  cause  of  polyandry.     The  family  under  the 
old  feudal  system  was  a  modified  type  of  the 
Roman  and  Teutonic  families,  but  the  feudal 
family  has  been  completely  modified,  not  only 
by  the  industrial  changes,  but  even  more  by 
the  intellectual  movements  of  the  modern  age. 
If  the  family,  like  other  social  institutions,  has 
been  in  a  constant  process  of  change,  it  is  only 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  in  the  future  these 
changes  will  continue.     The  family,  a  hundred 
years  from  now,  will  probably  be  as  different 


Some  Concluding   Words  233 

from  the  family  of  to-day  as  the  family  of  to- 
day is  different  from  the  family  of  a  hundred 
years  ago. 

One  of  the  most  important  forces  in  effect- 
ing a  change  in  the  family  of  the  future  will 
be  the  attitude  of  both  man  and  woman  to 
marriage.  To  the  woman  of  a  hundred  years 
ago,  marriage  was  the  chief  end  of  existence. 
She  lived  to  get  married.  Her  art  in  life  was  the 
art  of  winning  a  husband.  Economically  she 
was  compelled  to  follow  this  art.  There  was 
no  vocation  for  her  other  than  the  home, 
hence  she  was  dependent  upon  man  for  her 
support.  But  this  is  no  longer  true.  Mar- 
riage to-day  is  an  incident  in  the  life  of 
woman  as  well  as  in  the  life  of  man.  To  be 
sure,  marriage  is  one  of  the  most  important 
incidents  in  life,  but  still  it  is  not  an  absolute 
necessity.  This  is  indicated  by  the  decrease 
in  marriages  in  all  the  States  of  Europe.  In- 
creasing numbers  of  men  and  women  are  refus- 
ing to  enter  the  marriage  relationship. 

This  is  due  to  several  causes.  First,  man  is 
independent  of  woman  to  a  larger  degree  than 


234  Will  the  Home  Survive 

ever  in  history.  The  club  affords  him  a 
pleasant  home.  There  are  places  where  his 
clothes  can  be  made  and  mended.  The  world 
of  amusement  gives  him  a  place  to  spend  his 
evenings.  Thus  he  is  not  compelled  by- 
domestic  needs  to  seek  a  home.  When  he 
faces  the  serious  question  of  forming  a  home, 
he  finds  himself  face  to  face  with  two  or  three 
very  stubborn  considerations.  The  first  is  a 
financial  one.  Though  he  may  have  what  our 
fathers  would  have  regarded  a  large  income, 
this  income  is  not  enough  to  enable  him  to 
form  a  home  of  the  type  to  which  he  has  been 
accustomed.  The  salary  of  clerks,  for  example, 
is  often  much  less  than  that  of  first-class 
mechanics,  yet  the  social  demands  made  upon 
them  are  much  greater.  The  society  in 
which  they  move  requires  a  dress  suit  and  a 
certain  amount  of  money  for  entertaining.  If 
they  are  married  and  preserve  the  same  social 
standing,  equally  exacting  demands  will  be 
made  upon  their  wives.  But  their  income  is 
not  adequate  to  this.  Hence  the  man  of  this 
type  is  compelled  to  choose  between  cehbacy 


Some  Concluding  Words  235 

and  married  life  on  a  little  lower  social  plane 
than  the  one  in  which  he  has  always  moved. 

This  alternative  is  inseparable  from  the 
disease  of  the  time,  the  disease  which  has 
taken  possession  of  our  over-rich,  and  from 
them  has  worked  down  through  all  classes  of 
society,  the  disease  of  wasteful  luxury  and 
high  living.  It  is  the  disease  of  our  social 
system,  and  there  is  no  possibility  of  over- 
coming it  until  the  cause  is  eradicated. 

There  is  even  more  to  be  said  from  the 
standpoint  of  woman,  for  the  reduction  in  the 
number  of  marriages  in  proportion  to  the 
population  is  due  to  the  attitude  of  woman 
even  more  than  to  that  of  man.  This  is  true 
because  woman  has  suddenly  come  to  a  posi- 
tion of  financial  independence.  She  is  no 
longer  compelled  to  marry,  as  were  our  grand- 
mothers. We  have  been  hearing  a  great  deal 
about  the  college  woman,  a  class  only  about 
half  of  whom,  it  is  said,  enter  marriage.  What 
is  true  of  the  college  woman  is  true  in  some 
degree  of  all  women.  They  can  now  care  for 
themselves,  and  some  of  them  much  better 


236  Will  the  Ho))ie  Survive 

than  men  can  care  for  them.  Hence  they  are 
refusing  to  view  marriage  as  their  soul  voca- 
tion. They  are  viewing  it,  as  we  have  already 
said,  as  only  one  of  the  incidents  of  their 
existence,  an  important  one,  but  still  only  an 
incident.  They  are  not  trying  to  avoid  mar- 
riage, but  they  are  so  independent  that  they 
are  trying  to  avoid  the  wrong  kind  of  mar- 
riage. They  are  determined  that  if  they 
marry  at  all  they  shall  have  the  right  kind  of 
marriage.  If  they  take  a  man  as  a  life  partner 
they  are  determined  that  he  shall  be  a  worthy 
partner.  They  are  determined  that  into  their 
marriage  shall  enter  intellectual  and  moral 
sympathy  which  shall  survive  the  mere 
demands  of  sex.  In  short,  for  the  first  time  in 
the  history  of  the  world,  women,  that  is,  self- 
respecting  and  intelligent  women,  have 
reached  a  place  where  they  can  make  a  choice 
of  their  life- mates,  and  they  are  exercising 
their  right  to  choose. 

So  far  from  being  hostile  to  the  family,  these 
tendencies  are  only  preparing  the  way  for  a 
higher  and  purer  form  of   family  life.     The 


Some  Concluding  Words  lyi 

best  type  of  modern  woman,  when  she  walks 
up  the  long  church  aisle  to  be  joined  to  man, 
does  not  stand  before  the  altar  to  promise  to 
obey  and  cower  before  his  sovereign  will,  she 
comes  to  give  herself  to  him  only  as  he  gives 
himself  to  her.  She  asks  that  he  be  as  pure 
as  she  is,  be  as  holy  as  she  is,  be  as  worthy  as 
she  is.  It  is  inevitable  that  when  woman 
takes  this  position  there  must  be  some  fall  in 
the  proportion  of  the  marriages  to  the  popula- 
tion, but  we  must  believe  that  in  the  end  the 
result  will  be  good,  that  by  it  humanity  will 
be  lifted. 

These  conditions,  however,  have  resulted  in 
another  radical  change  in  our  family  customs. 
Our  fathers,  both  Protestant  and  Catholic, 
urged  upon  the  young  the  advisability  of 
marrying  early,  and  the  marriage  of  girls 
seventeen  years  of  age  was  not  an  uncommon 
thing  in  the  early  history  of  our  country. 
While  our  fathers  taught  the  advisability  of 
early  marriage,  they  also  taught  the  moral 
and  religious  duty  of  bearing  large  families. 
They  also  whispered,  "  Marry  early  lest  ye 


238  Will  the  Home  Survive 

sin."  There  is  much  to  be  said  in  favor  of 
early  marriage,  but  however  much  may  be 
said  in  favor  of  it,  society  is  more  and  more 
tending  to  the  late  marriage.  And  on  the 
whole  this  seems  far  preferable. 

After  men  and  women  have  reached  the 
age  of  maturity,  the  age  of  strong  mental 
and  moral  development,  the  mental  and  moral 
natures  are  apt  to  play  a  larger  part  in  the 
choice  of  a  mate  than  the  purely  physical 
instincts.  The  mature  woman  knows  more 
about  the  meaning  of  life,  those  permanent 
qualities  which  go  to  make  up  the  happiness 
of  life,  the  place  of  intellectual  and  moral 
sympathies.  She  is  better  able  to  judge  of  the 
tastes  and  ambitions  of  the  one  she  is  to 
choose  for  her  mate.  Furthermore,  when 
parents  are  well  developed,  intellectually  and 
morally,  they  are  better  able  to  care  for  their 
children,  to  give  them  the  education  that  is 
necessary  for  their  development  and  the  care 
which  is  necessary  for  their  health. 

Thus  the  tendency  towards  late  marriage, 
the  refusal  to  marry  if  the  right  party  cannot 


Some  Concluding   IVords  239 

be  found,  is  not  such  an  alarming  tendency  as 
at  first  it  may  seem.  The  tendency  may  at 
times  grow  out  of  selfishness,  the  love  of  ease 
and  pleasure,  but  on  the  whole  it  is  a  part  of 
the  general  modern  tendency  to  demand  the 
best  or  nothing.  In  the  end  it  will  uplift  Hfe, 
will  make  better  homes,  and  purer  and  more 
intelligent  communities. 

This  independence  of  the  sexes,  which  has 
created  a  new  marriage  relationship,  must 
inevitably  cause  certain  changes  in  the  mar- 
riage ceremonies  which  are  used  by  most 
churches.  The  inferior  position  held  by 
woman,  man's  proprietorship  in  some  sense 
over  her,  may  clearly  be  seen  in  almost  all 
early  marriage  rites.  Among  the  Ewe-speak- 
ing peoples,  the  man  was  betrothed  to  the 
woman  by  sending  two  large  flasks  of  rum  to 
her  father's  house.  If  the  father  accepted  the 
proposal,  the  flasks  were  returned  empty. 
Two  more  flasks  were  then  sent,  together 
with  other  gifts,  and  this  completed  the 
betrothal.  On  the  wedding-day,  about  sun- 
down, the  parents  escorted  the  bride  to  the 


240  Will  the  Home  Survive 

groom's  house.  Feasting  continued  until 
about  midnight,  when  four  women  conducted 
the  bride  to  the  groom's  room  and  said :  "  If 
she  pleases  you  and  behaves  well,  treat  her 
kindly.  If  she  behaves  ill,  correct  her."  She 
lived  with  her  husband  seven  days,  after 
which  she  went  to  the  home  of  her  parents 
for  seven  days,  when  she  returned  to  live 
permanently  w'ith  her  husband. 

This  ceremony  is  based  upon  two  principles. 
First,  that  the  wife  is,  in  some  sense,  the 
property  of  the  husband.  He  may  treat  her 
well.  The  laws  of  some  tribes  provide  that 
in  case  of  ill  treatment,  the  woman  shall  be 
returned  to  her  parents.  Still  there  is  a  clear 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  he  pays  a  price  for 
the  woman  and  that  she  is  his  property,  to 
use  as  he  desires.  He  is,  also,  her  master. 
He  is  the  judge  of  her  conduct.  In  some  de- 
gree he  is  accountable  for  her  actions  ;  if  she 
does  not  behave  well  it  is  his  duty  to  correct 
her. 

These  two  principles,  the  authority  of  the 
husband  over  the  wife,  and  his  ownership  of 


Some  Conchiding  Words  241 

her,  are  reflected  in  the  marriage  customs  of 
almost  all  people  down  to  the  present  time. 
From  the  earliest  periods  of  which  we  have 
any  records  among  the  English  and  Teutonic 
peoples,  marriage  took  the  form  of  a  sale  of 
the  bride  by  her  father  to  the  bridegroom. 
While  this  principle  was  greatly  modified,  the 
contract  being  more  natural  and  liberal,  it  was 
still  clearly  recognized  in  the  period  when 
the  civil  power  in  regulating  marriage  was  de- 
clining and  the  power  of  the  church  was 
growing. 

Our  ecclesiastical  marriage  ceremonies  had 
their  rise  in  the  tenth  century,  a  period  when 
man  was  still  regarded  as  the  lord  of  his  house- 
hold, with  absolute  authority  over  his  wife  and 
children.  All  civil  laws  recognized  this. 
Woman  had  few  rights.  She  was  represented 
by  her  husband.  It  was  natural  that  ecclesias- 
tical ceremonies,  so  far  as  they  reflected  social 
conditions,  should  embody  the  principles  then 
dominating  society.  This  is  what  we  do  dis- 
cover when  we  turn  to  any  one  of  the  earliest 
marriage  forms  used  by  the  Church  in  Eng- 


242  Will  the  Home  Survive 

land.  We  may  use  the  York  service  as  an 
illustration.     The  priest  says  to  the  man : 

"  N.,  wylt  thou  haue  this  woman  to  thy 
wyfe  and  loue  her  (and  wirschipe  hir)  and 
keep  her,  in  sykenes  and  in  helthe,  and  in  all 
other  degrese  be  to  her  as  a  husbande  shoulde 
be  to  his  wyfe,  and  all  other  forsake  for  her, 
and  holde  the  only  to  her  to  thy  lyues  ende." 

The  man  is  to  answer :  "  I  wyll."  The 
priest  then  says  to  the  woman : 

"  N.,  wylt  thou  haue  this  man  to  thy  hus- 
bande, and  to  be  buxum  to  hym  (luf  hym, 
obeye  to  him,  and  wirschipe  hym),  serue  hym 
and  kepe  hym  in  sykenes  and  in  helthe:  and 
in  all  other  degrese  be  unto  him  as  a  wyfe 
shulde  be  to  her  husbande,  and  all  other  to 
forsake  for  hym,  and  holde  the  only  to  hym 
to  thy  lyues  ende." 

The  woman  is  to  say :  "  I  will." 

It  is  evident  that  this  ceremony  is  the  clear 
expression  of  the  social  standing  of  woman  in 
this  period.  She  must  promise  to  obey  and 
serve  her  lord,  while  he  is  only  under  obliga- 
tion to  keep  her. 


Some  Cojicluding   Words  243 

This  same  ceremony  has  come  down  to  the 
present  time  and  is  used  by  many  churches. 
The  husband  promises  that  he  will  love,  com- 
fort, and  keep  his  wife,  but  the  wife  promises 
not  only  to  love,  honor,  and  keep  her  husband, 
but  also  to  obey  and  serve  him.  The  cere- 
mony makes  his  will  still  supreme,  and  her 
hfe  one  of  obedience  and  service.  It  is  a  sur- 
vival from  a  social  condition  that  has  long 
ago  actually  passed  from  life,  and  the  churches 
ought  to  adjust  their  ceremonies  to  the  new 
spirit  which  exists  between  man  and  woman 
in  the  married  state. 

Such  change  would  not  involve  any  weak- 
ening of  marriage  obligations,  but  would 
rather  involve  a  strengthening  of  them.  In 
the  first  place,  it  would  destroy  all  possibility 
of  argument  on  the  part  of  those  who  would 
abolish  marriage  ceremonies  on  the  ground 
that  they  imply  a  degree  of  bondage  for 
women.  In  the  second  place,  it  would  em- 
phasize the  spiritual  nature  of  the  union,  in 
harmony  with  the  best  thinking  and  feeling 
of  our  time,  and  would  declare  man's  equal 


244  Will  the  Home  Survive 

obligation  with  woman  to  exhibit  those  ele- 
ments of  conduct  which  would  make  the  union 
all  it  ought  to  be.  Both  parties  would  be 
united  for  better  or  for  worse,  with  equal 
responsibility  to  make  it  for  better.  They 
would  be  united  as  one  in  thought,  pur- 
pose, and  sympathy,  each  recognizing  the  fact 
that  only  as  they  both  wisely  studied  to  bring 
about  this  oneness  could  their  marriage  be 
happy  and  useful. 

The  appalling  defect  of  much  of  the  litera- 
ture connected  with  the  so-called  emancipa- 
tion of  women  is  its  emphasis  of  the  inde- 
pendence of  both  parties  to  the  marriage 
contract.  This  is  evidently  a  reaction,  and  a 
very  natural  one,  from  the  older  emphasis  on 
the  dependence  of  the  woman  upon  the  man. 
But  the  reaction  has  gone  to  absurd  extremes. 
No  permanent  family  life  can  be  built  upon  the 
emphasis  of  the  independence  of  both  parties  to 
the  marriage  contract.  The  home  from  its  very 
nature  is  not  an  institution  that  can  be  con- 
ducted in  such  a  spirit.  The  home  would  be 
divided  against  itself  and  would  fall.     Unity 


Some  Concluding   Words  245 

of  purpose,  of  sympathy,  of  love,  must  be  the 
foundation  of  the  home,  a  unity  that  forgets 
difference,  a  love  that  is  blind  to  rights.  Not 
otherwise  can  permanent  and  happy  families 
be  formed. 

No  Utopia  has  ever  been  written  which 
gives  us  such  an  inspiring  picture  of  the  family, 
beautiful  in  its  relationships,  full  of  hope  and 
promise,  as  the  story  of  the  slow,  painful,  but 
glorious  evolution  of  the  monogamous  family 
out  of  the  chaos  of  early  social  life  into  the 
present  institution  of  the  home.  The  very 
complexity  of  it  is  a  part  of  its  beauty,  while 
the  poverty  of  many  Utopias  is  their  attempt 
to  reduce  life  to  a  monotonous  simplicity. 
Complexity  is  a  part  of  life's  richness,  and  the 
endless  variety  of  problems  and  surprises  con- 
nected with  the  monogamous  family  are  its 
increasing  contributions  to  the  development  of 
mankind. 

It  is  only  this  complex  monogamous  type  of 
family  that  produces  the  best  type  of  woman- 
hood. Polygamy  degrades  certain  classes  of 
the  community,  which  it  sets  aside  for  certain 


246  IVill  the  Home  Survive 

purposes.  Some  women  are  used  only  for 
sexual  sympathy,  while  others  are  used  for 
reproduction.  Monogamy  alone  cornbines  all 
of  the  womanly  functions  in  one  woman,  thus 
fitting  her  to  the  best  advantage  for  parent- 
hood and  the  education  of  her  children.  It 
develops  a  higher  moral  and  intellectual  type 
than  is  possible  under  any  other  system  of 
marriage. 

It  is  just  at  this  point  that  such  a  Utopian 
writer  as  Mrs.  Charlotte  Gilman  fails.  She 
deplores  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells'  scheme  of  paid 
motherhood,  thinking  it  would  be  degrading 
to  women.  In  the  place  of  such  a  scheme, 
she  proposes  that  all  married  women  bear 
children,  but  only  those  who  have  certain  in- 
clinations and  gifts  for  the  care  of  children  be 
trusted  with  the  training  ;  others  to  be  per- 
mitted to  follow  the  line  of  work  for  which 
they  have  a  liking.  Nothing,  however,  would 
be  more  fatal  to  the  development  of  her 
womanhood  than  this  proposal  to  have  woman 
follow  the  line  of  least  resistance.  She  would 
become  a  mere  breeding  animal,  not  a  mother. 


Some  Concluding   Words  247 

The  richness  of  character  which  comes  from 
Ufe's  complexity  would  be  lost.  The  strength 
of  character,  as  well  as  its  tenderness  and  the 
breadth  of  its  outlook,  comes  not  from  run- 
ning away  from  life  but  from  meeting  it.  Out 
of  the  struggle  of  the  home  made  by  one  man 
and  one  woman,  "  self-reverent  each  and  rev- 
erencing each,"  has  come  the  highest  and 
best  type  of  life  the  world  has  yet  seen.  As 
one  writer  puts  the  matter :  "  The  family  af- 
fords scope  for  the  qualities  peculiar  to  the  re- 
lations between  strong  and  weak,  old  and 
young,  male  and  female,  and  tends  to  deepen 
and  accentuate  them.  Whether  or  not  it  exag- 
gerates them  wiirdepend  upon  whether  the  spir- 
itual forces  in  the  family  have  been  well  or  ill 
balanced.  The  child  who  is  never  encouraged 
to  develop  his  own  initiative  and  assert  his 
own  individuality,  the  woman  whose  inflexi- 
bility is  subdued  into  feebleness,  the  man 
whose  strength  is  perverted  into  tyranny,  are 
all  products  of  an  ill-balanced  family  life.  But 
where  the  spiritual  forces  are  well  balanced 
within  the  family,  then,  out  of  all  the  stress 


248  Will  the  Home  Survive 

and  strain  arise  qualities  of  mutual  respect, 
forbearance,  and  self-control  which  the  solitary 
individual  has  little  chance  of  acquiring,"  and 
we  would  add,  which  the  individual,  who  by 
any  simplifying  process  tries  to  take  himself 
out  of  this  complexity,  has  little  chance  of  ac- 
quiring. 

Civilized  life  seems  to  demand  the  perma- 
nent union  of  man  and  woman  in  the  home. 
Nature  makes  this  imperative  by  sending  the 
helpless  infant,  which  demands  the  care  of  the 
parents  for  a  long  period  of  time.  This  care 
cannot  be  bestowed  by  any  other  than  the 
true  father  and  mother,  without  serious  loss  to 
the  child.  The  highest  and  finest  instincts  of 
man  call  for  such  a  union.  However  these  in- 
stincts came,  whether  by  heredity,  or  whether 
they  are  a  part  of  the  primal  instincts  of  the 
race,  they  rebel  against  the  thought  of  "  suc- 
cessive polygamy."  Nature  by  this  primal 
instinct  binds  man  and  woman  together  for  a 
permanent  union.  Experience  has  taught  us 
the  superiority  of  the  union  made  "  until  death 
do  ye  part."     It  is  the  type  of  marriage  which 


Some  Concluding   Words  249 

calls  on  man  and  woman  to  exercise  self-con- 
trol, to  minimize  differences,  and  to  be  true  to 
one  another  for  the  sake  of  children  and  the 
state.  Furthermore,  the  history  of  our  own 
time  and  of  the  past  clearly  teaches  us  that 
loose  marriage  ties  have  always  meant  licen- 
tiousness and  social  corruption.  The  whole 
process  of  evolution  has  culminated  in  this 
type  of  family  life.  Unless  nature  is  unrea- 
sonable, unless  the  movement  of  history  is 
blind,  the  monogamous  family  will  prevail. 
The  type  will  undergo  constant  modification, 
but  for  the  sake  of  society,  and  of  the  unborn 
and  growing  generation  of  children,  the 
changes  will  be  in  the  line  of  greater  perma- 
nence, and  of  social  conditions  fitted  to  pro- 
duce a  higher  type  of  Ufe. 


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